=-  "■»  •'' 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


COMMUNISM  and 
CHRISTIANISM 

hy 
BJSHOP'  WILLIAM'  MONTCOMERY'BROWN'D'D^ 


The  Bradford- Brvwn  Educational  Company,  mc. 
Publishers  -  GalionJOhio. 


To  the  House  of  Bishops   of  the  Protestant   Episcopal   Church   in 
the   United  States   of   America. 

My    dear   Brethren: 

According  to  the  Arkansas  Gazette,  the  movement  looking 
towards  my  trial  and  deposition  has  failed,  and  according  to  the 
Oregonian  its  failure  is  due  to  your  belief  that  my  mental  con- 
dition is  such  as  to  prevent  me  from  being  held  responsible  for 
the  heretical  representations  of  the  booklet,  Communism  and 
Christianism. 

On  the  one  hand,  1  cannot  consistently  blame  you  for  this 
conviction,  because  during  the  many  years  of  my  active  ministry, 
I  would  have  entertained  it  towards  any  one  among  you  who 
had  left  as  I  have  the  orthodox  way  and  traveled  as  far  in  the 
heterodox   one. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  cannot  blame  me,  human  nature 
being  what  it  is,  for  feeling  that  the  real  reason  for  stopping  the 
movement  is  your  inability  to  frame  charges  from  the  booklet 
and  to  proceed  against  me  with  them  without  discrediting  your 
own  orthodoxy   more  than   my   heterodoxy. 

But  to  make  sure  that  I  am  not  in  error  as  to  this  feeling,  I 
will  offer,  and  hereby  do  offer,  myself  to  the  House  of  Bishops 
for  a  thorough-going,  mental  examinations  by  the  Professors  of 
Psychology  in  Yale,  Columbia  and  John  Hopkins  Universities. 
They  are  not  personally  known  to  me,  but  1  am  willing  to  trust 
them. 

If  you  accept  this  challenge  and  arrange  for  the  exami- 
nation, it  should  take  place  at  Galion;  for,  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  my  health,  I  could  not  go  to  one  of  the  universities  for 
it  and  have  strength  enough  left  for  the  requisite  sittings. 

If  the  members  of  the  House  of  Bishops  will  place  them- 
selves on  record  as  believing  the  representations  of  the  Bible, 
literally  interpreted,  concerning  the  creation  of  Adam  and  Eve; 
the  planting  of  the  Garden  of  Eden;  the  fall  of  Adam  and  Eve 
and  its  effects;  the  birth  of  Jesus;  his  death  and  descent  into 
hell;  his  resurrection  and  ascension  into  heaven,  and  his  second 
coming  to  raise  all  deceased  men,  women  and  children  from  the 
dead  and  to  judge  and  send  them  to  heaven  or  hell,  I  will  re- 
sign and  do  hereby  agree  to   resign  my  seat  in  the  House. 

If  you  do  not  accept  the  first  of  these  offers,  1  shall  feel 
that  you  should  not  reflect  upon  my  mental  condition  in  public 
or  private,  but  rather  appoint  a  competent  artist  to  illustrate  the 
situation  with  a  picture  of  big,  barking,  snapping  dogs  and  a 
little,     bristling     porcupine     with     these     explanatory     inscriptions: 

(I)    under    the    dogs "The    House    of    Bishops;"    and    (2)    under 

the    porcupine "Bishop    Brown,"    and     (3)     under    the    picture 

"Nothing   that    can   safely   be    taken   hold   of." 

Hoping  for  your  acceptance  of  my  friendly  challenges,  1 
am,   with    every    good   wish    for   all. 

Very  (Cordially  yours, 

WM.  M.  BROWN. 

Galion,     Ohio,  aanjnn^ 

September    25,    1922.  -5^^. 

(See  inside  page  of  back  cover.) 


To  THE  Purchaser: 

Lying  Supernaturalism  is  going;  robbing  Capitalism  is 
falling;  saving  Laborism  is  rising,  and  leveling  Unionism 
is  coming. 

This  booklet,  Communism  and  Christianism,  is  a  con- 
tribution by  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Wm.  M.  Brown  of  Galion, 
Ohio,  towards  the  furtherance  of  these  downward,  up- 
ward and  forward  movements,  the  most  fortunate  events 
in  the  whole  history  of  mankind.  We  hope  that  you  will 
read,  mark,  learn  and  inwardly  digest  its  extremely 
revolutionary,  comprehensive  and  salutary  teachings  con- 
cerning both  religion  and  politics  with  the  happy  result 
of  becoming  an  apostle  of  its  illuminating  and  inspiring 
interpretation  of  the  scientific  gospel  of  Marx  and  Engels 
to  wage  slaves,  the  only  "gospel  which  points  the  way  to 
redemption  from  their  body  and  soul  destroying  slavery. 

You  may  become  a  missionary  of  this  gospel  in  your 
neighborhood,  and  as  such  do  more  good  than  all  its 
orthodox  preachers,  teachers,  editors  and  politicians  to- 
gether at  no  financial  cost  to  yourself  by  ordering  this 
booklet  at  our  special  rates:  six  copies,  $1.00;  twenty 
copies,  $3.00,  prepaid,  and  selling  them  to  workers  at 
our  retail  price,  25  cents  for  one  copy.  As  we  make 
no  profit  and  do  no  bookkeeping,  cash  should  accom- 
pany all  orders. 

To  organizations  working  for  famine,  unemployment, 
bail,  defense  or  liberation  funds.  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Brown 
donate  twenty  copies  for  each  twenty  ordered  with  re- 
mittance. 

The  Bradford-Brown  Educational  Company,  Inc. 
Publishers  .  _  -  -  Galion,   Ohio 


Announcement. 

The  Bradford-Brown  Educational  Company,  Inc., 
handles  only  the  English  edition  of  the  booklet,  Com- 
munism and  Christianism.  Those  who  want  it  in  the 
foreign  tongues  now  ready  (Italian,  Bohemian,  Swed- 
ish, Hungarian,  Greek  and  Finnish)  are  requested  to 
correspond  with  Messrs.  Charles  H.  Kerr  and  Com- 
pany, 341-349  East  Ohio  St.,  Chicago,  111.,  the  largest 
publishers  of  Marxian  literature  in  the  world.  Book 
dealers  desiring  copies  of  the  English  edition  are  also 
referred  to  them. 


English  Editions  and  Their  Dates. 

First  Edition,  10,000  copies,  October  11th,  1920. 

Second  Edition,  10,000  copies,  revised  and  enlarged 
from  184  to  204  pages,  February  15th,  1921. 

Third  Edition,  10,000  copies,  March  2nd,.  1921. 

Fourth  Edition,  10,000  copies  (2,000  in  cloth  bind- 
ing) revised  and  enlarged  from  204  to  224  pages, 
April  9,  1921. 

Fifth  Edition,  10,000  copies.  May  1,  1921. 

Sixth  Edition,  25,000  copies,  October  10,  1921. 

Seventh  Edition  25,000  copies,  November  1,  1922. 

Eighth  Edition,  25,000  copies,  April  15,  1923.     . 


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Rt.  Rev.  William  Montgomery  Brown,  D.  D. 

Fifth  Bishop  of  Arkansas,  Resigned;  Member 
House  of  Bishops  Protestant  Episcopal  Church ; 
Sometime  Archdeacon  of  Ohio  and  Special 
Lecturer  at  Bexley  Hall,  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary of  Kenyon  College.  Now  Episcopus  in 
partibus  Bolshevikium  et  Infidelium. 


COMMUNISM   AND 
CHRISTIANISM 

ANALYZED  AND  CONTRASTED 

FROM  THE 

MARXIAN  AND   DARWINIAN 

POINTS  OF  VIEiW 

by 
William  Montgomery  Brown 


Banish  the  Gods  from  the  Side* 
and  Capitalists  from  the 
Earth  and  make  the  World  safe 
for    Industrial    Communism. 


Bradford-Brown    Educational   Company,  Inc. 
Publishers ,    .     .     .     .      Galion,  Ohio 

One  Hundred  Twenty-Fifth  Thoussnd 


DEDICATION 

This  booklet  is  gratefully  dedicated  to 
the  Proletariat  from  whom  Bishop  and 
Mrs.  Brown  are  sprung,  and  to  whose  un- 
requited labors  (not  to  the  good  provi- 
dence of  a  divinity)  they  owe  their 
wealth,  leisure  and  opportunities. 


PROLEGOMENA* 

Religion  is  the  opium  of  the  people.  The 
suppression  of  religion  as  the  happiness  of  the 
people  is  the  revindication  of  its  real  happi- 
ness. The  invitation  to  abandon  illusions  re- 
garding its  situation  is  an  invitation  to  aban- 
don a  situation  v^^hich  has  need  of  illusions. 
Criticism  of  religion  is,  therefore,  th^  germ  of 
a  criticism  of  the  vale  of  tears,  of  which  re- 
ligion is  the  holy  aspect. 

— Marx. 

Not  only,  indeed,  is  the  struggle  against  religion 
intellectually  useful,  but  it  cannot  conscientiously  be 
avoided,  for  religion  is  used  against  the  Socialist 
movement  by  the  possessing  class  in  every  country'. 

But  to  abolish  religion  is  not  to  abolish  exploitation, 
because  only  one  of  the  enemy's  guns  will  have  been 
silenced.  The  workers  have,  above  all,  to  dislodge 
the  capitalist  class  from  power.  The  religious  ques- 
tion, and  indeed  all  else,  is  secondary  to  this. 

The  test  of  admission  to  a  Socialist  Party  must  be 
neither  more  nor  less  than  acceptance  of  the  follow- 
ing seven  working  principles  and  the  policy  of  Social- 
ism as  a  class  movement: 

1.  Society,  as  at  present  constituted,  is  I5!ased  upon  the 
ownership  of  the  means  of  living  (land,  factories,  rail- 
ways) by  the  capitalist  or  master  class,  and  the  consequent 
enslavement  of  the  working  class,  by  whose  labor  alone 
wealth  is  produced. 

*From  the  Official  Manifesto  by  the  Socialist  Party  of  Great 
Britain,  showing  the  Antagonism  between  Marxian  Socialism  or 
Communism  and  Religion.— W.  M.  B. 


6  -  PROLEGOMENA 

2.  In  society,  therefore,  there  is  an  antagonism  of 
interests,  manifesting  itself  as  a  class  struggle,  between 
those  who  possess  but  do  not  produce  and  those  who 
produce  but  do  not  possess. 

3.  This  antagonism  can  be  abolished  only  by  emanci- 
pation of  the  working  class  from  the  domination  of  the 
master  class  by  the  conversion  into  the  common  property 
of  society  of  the  means  of  production  and  distribution, 
and  their  democratic  control  by  the  whole  people. 

4.  As  in  the  order  of  social  evolution  the  working 
class  is  the  la5t  to  achieve  its  freedom,  the  emancipation 
of  the  working  class  will  involve  the  emancipation  of  all 
mankind  without  distinction  of  race  or  sex. 

5.  This  emancipation  must  be  the  work  of  the  work- 
ing class  itself. 

6.  As  the  machinery  of  capitalist  government,  in- 
cluding the  armed  forces  of  the  nation,  conserves  the 
monopoly  by  the  capitalist  class  of  the  wealth  taken  from 
the  workers,  the  working  class  must  organize  conscious- 
ly and  politically  for  acquiring  the  powers  of  government, 
national  and  local,  in  'order  that  this  machinery,  includ- 
ing these  forces,  may  be  converted  from  an  instrument 
of  oppression  into  the  agent  of  emancipation  and  the 
overthrow  of  privilege,  aristocratic  and  plutocratic* 

7.  As  all  political  parties  are  but  the  expression  of 
class  interests,  and  as  the  interest  of  the  working-class 
is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  interests  of  all  sections 
o*f  the  master-class,  the  party  seeking  working-class 
emancipation  must  be  hostile  to  every  other  party. 

If  a  man  supports  the  church,  or  in  any  respect 


♦This  section  has  been  slightly  changed  to  make  sure  of  guard- 
ing against  the  advocacy  of  armed  insurrection.  Communists 
throughout  the  world  want  a  peaceful  evolution  from  capitalism 
into  communism;  but  whether  or  not  it  will  be  so  in  the  case 
of  any  country  is,  as  Lenin  prophesies,  to  be  determined  by  the 
dealings  of  its  capitalists  with  its  laborers.  In  reply  to  an  in- 
quiry on  this  vexed  subject  by  an  English  author,  Lenin  said, 
in  effect,  that  in  England,  as  elsewhere,  the  tactics  of  the  capi- 
talist class  will  determine  the  program  of  the  labor  class. — 
W.  M.  B. 


PROLEGOMENA  7 

allows  religious  ideas  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  fore- 
going seven  essential  principles  of  socialism  or  the 
activity  of  a  Party,  he  proves  thereby  that  he  does 
not  accept  Socialism  as  fundamentally  true  and  of  the 
first  importance,  and  his  place  is  outside. 

No  man  can  be  consistently  both  a  Socialist  and  a 
Christian.  It  must  be  either  the  socialist  or  the  re- 
ligious principle  that  is  supreme,  for  the  attempt  to 
couple  them  equally  betrays  charlatanism  or  lack  of 
thought.  There  is,  therefore,  no  need  for  a  specifically 
anti-religious  test. 

So  surely  does  the  acceptance  of  Socialism  lead  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  supernatural,  that  the  Socialist 
has  little  need  for  such  terms  as  Atheist,  Free- 
thinker, or  even  Materialist;  for  the  word  Socialist, 
rightly*  understood,  implies  one  who,  on  all  such  ques- 
tions, takes  his  stand  on  positive  science,  explaining 
all  things  by  purely  natural  causation,  Socialism  be- 
ing not  merely  a  politico-economic  creed,  but  also  an 
integral  part  of  a  consistent  world  philosophy. 

So  long  as  the  chaos  of  modern  competitive  society 
exists,  the  accompanying  obscurity  and  confusion  in 
social  life  will  continue  to  shelter  superstition.  This 
point  is  illustrated  in  the  following  reference  by  Marx 
to  the  United  States: 

When  we  see  in  the  very  country  of  complete  political 
emancipation  not  only  that  religion  exists,  but  retains  its 
vigour,  there  is  no  need,  I  hope,  for  other  proofs  in  order 
to  show  that  the  existence  of  religion  is  not  incompatible 
with  the  full  political  maturity  of  the  State.  But  if  re- 
ligion exists  it  is  because  of  a  defective  social  organiza- 
tion, of  which  it  is  necessary  to  seek  the  cause  in  the 
very  essence  of  the  State. 

Class  domination  is  the  essence  of  the  modern  State. 


8  PROLEGOMENA 

It  is  based  on  competitive  strife  and  parasitism — the 
evidences  of  a  defective  social  organization.  It  still 
leaves  room  for  religion,  because  it  maintains  ignor- 
ance and  confusion  by  its  structure  and  contradictions, 
and  because  religion  is  fostered  as  a  handmaiden  of 
class  rule. 

Nevertheless,  the  growth  of  the  social  forces  of  pro- 
duction within  modern  society,  and  the  better  knowl- 
edge the  workers  obtain  of  their  true  relations  to  each 
other  and  to  Nature,  loosen  the  chains  of  ghost  wor- 
ship and  mysticism  from  their  limbs  and  lessen  the 
power  of  religion  as  a  political  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  the  ruling  class,  while  they  form,  at  the  same  time, 
the  material-  and  intellectual  preparation  for  an  in-r 
telligently  organized  society.  The  matter  has  been 
put  in  a  nutshell  by  Marx  in  the  chapter  on  "Com- 
modities" in  "Capital,"  volume  I. 

The  religious  reflex  of  the  real  world  can,  in  any 
case,  only  then  finally  vanish,  when  the  practical  relations 
of  every-day  life  offer  to  man  none  but  perfectly  in- 
telligible and  reasonable  relations  with  regard  to  his  fel- 
low men  and  to  nature. 

The  life  process  of  society,  which  is  based  on  the  pro- 
cess of  material  production,  does  not  strip  off  its  mystical 
veil  until  it  is  treated  as  production  by  freely  associated 
men,  and  is  consciously  regulated  by  them  in  accordance 
with  a  settled  plan. 

This,  however,  demands  for  society  a  certain  material 
groundwork  or  set  of  conditions  of  existence  which  in 
their  turn  are  the  spontaneous  product  of  a  long  and 
painful  process  of  development. 

It  is,  therefore,  a  profound  truth  that  Socialism  is 
the  natural  enemy  of  religion.  Through  Socialism 
alone  will  the  relations  between  men  in  society,  and 


PROLEGOMENA  9 

their  relations  to  Nature,  become  reasonable,  orderly, 
and  completely  intelligible,  leaving  no  nook  or  cranny 
for  superstition.*  The  entry  of  Socialism  is,  conse- 
quently, the  exodus  of  religion. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL. 

Arise,  ye  prisoners  of  starvation ! 

Arise,  ye  wretched  of  the  earth. 
For  justice  thunders  condemnation, 

A  better  world's  in  birth. 
No  more  tradition's  chain  shall  bind  us, 

Arise,  ye  slaves !  no  more  in  thrall ! 
The  earth  shall  rise  on  new  foundations, 

We  have  been  naught,  we  shall  be  all. 

We  want  no  condescending  saviors. 

To  rule  us  from  a  judgment  hall. 
We  workers  ask  not  for  their  favors, 

Let  us  consult  for  all. 
To  make  the  thief  disgorge  his  booty. 

To  free  the  spirit  from  its  cell. 
We  must  ourselves  decide  our  duty, 

We  must  decide  and  do  it  well. 

The  law  oppresses  us  and  tricks  us. 

Taxation  drains  the  victim's  blood; 
The  rich  are  free  from  obligations. 

The  laws  the  poor  delude. 
Too  long  we've  languished  in  subjection, 

Equality  has  other  laws : 
"No  rights,'*  says  she,  "without  their  duties. 

No  claims  on  equals  without  cause." 

Toilers  from  shops  and  fields  united, 

The  party  we  of  all  who  work; 
The  earth  belongs  to  us,  the  people. 

No  room  here  for  the  shirk. 
How  many  on  our  flesh  have  fattened! 

But  if  the  noisome  birds  of  prey 
Shall  vanish  from  the  sky  some  morning. 

The  blessed  sunlight  still  will  stay. 

— ^Eugene  Pottier,  Charles  H.  Kerr's  Translation. 


CONTENTS 

Page 
Prolegomena  , 5 

PART  I. 
Communism    13 

PART  II. 
Christianism    87 

PART  III, 

Criticisms    161 

Afterword    211 


Hitherto  every  form  of  society  has  been  based  on  the 
antagonism  of  oppressing  and  oppressed  classes.  But 
in  order  to  oppress  a  class,  certain  conditions  must  be 
assured  to  it  under  which  it  can,  at  least,  continue  its 
slavish  existence.  The  serf,  in  the  period  of  serfdom, 
raised  himself  to  membership  in  the  commune,  just  as 
the  petty  bourgeois,  under  the  yoke  of  feudal  absolutism, 
managed  to  develop  into  a  bourgeois.  The  modern  la- 
borer, on  the  contrary,  instead  of  rising  with  the  progress 
of  industry,  sinks  deeper  and  deeper  below  the  conditions 
of  existence  of  his  own  class.  He  becomes  a  pauper,  and 
pauperism  develops  more  rapidly  than  population  and 
wealth.  And  here  it  becomes  evident  that  the  bourgeoisie 
is  unfit  any  longer  to  be  the  ruling  class  in  society,  and 
to  impose  its  conditions  of  existence  upon  society  as  an 
over-riding  law.  It  is  unfit  to  rule,  because  it  is  incom- 
petent to  assure  an  existence  to  its  slave  within  his  slav- 
ery, because  it  cannot  help  letting  him  sink  into  such  a 
state  that  it  has  to  feed  him,  instead  of  being  fed  by  him. 
Society  can  no  longer  live  under  this  bourgeoisie,  in 
other  words,  its  existence  is  no  longer  compatible  with 
society. — Marx  and  Engels. 


COMMUNISM  AND 
GHRISTIANISM 


ANALYZED  AND  CONTRASTED 

FROM  THE 

MARXIAN  AND  DARWINIAN 

POINTS  OF  VIEW 


PART  I. 

Communism:    The  Naturalistic  This-worldly  Gospel 

for  the  Coming  Age  of  Classless  Equality  and 

Economic   Freedom — An  Open   Letter  to  a 

Brother  Bishop  and  a  Christian 

Socialist  Comrade. 


Conie  over  and  kelp  us. 
Abandon  Christian  Socialism 
for     Marxian     Communism. 


FOREWORD* 

The  concept  of  God,  aS  an  explanation  of  the  Uni- 
verse, is  becoming  entirely  untenable  in  this  age  of 
scientific  inquiry.  The  laws  of  the  persistence  of 
force  and  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  and  the  un- 
ending interplay  of  cause  and  effect,  make  the  at- 
tempt to  trace  the  origin  of  things  to  an  anthropo- 
morphic God  who  had  no  cause,  as  futile  as  is  the 
Oriental  cosmology^  which  holds  that  the  world  rests 
on  an  elephant,  and,  as  an  afterthought,  that  the 
elephant  stands  on  a  tortoise. 

The  inflexible  laws  of  the  known  universe  cannot 
logically  be  held  to  cease  where  our  immediate  ex- 
perience ends,  to  make  way  for  an  unscientific  con- 
cept of  an  uncaused  and  creating  being.  The  Creation 
idea  is  unsupported  by  evidence,  and  is  in  conflict  with 
every  scientific  law. 

Socialism  is  consistent  only  with  that  monistic  view 
which  regards  all  phenomena  as  expressions  of  the 
underlying  matter-force  reality  and  as  parts  of  the 
unity  of  Nature  which  interact  according  to  inviolable 
laws. 

Socialism  is  the  application  of  science,  the  arch- 
enemy of  religion,  to  human  social  relationships;  and 
just  as  the  basic  principle  of  the  philosophy  of  Social- 
ism finds  itself  in  conflict  with  religion,  so  does  it, 
as  a  propagandist  movement,  find  religion  acting 
against  it. 


♦From  the  Official  Manifesto  by  the  Socialist  Party  of  Great 
Britain,  showing  the  Antagonism  between  Marxian  Socialism  or 
Communism  and  Religion. — ^W.  M.  B. 


COMMUNISM:     THE    NATURALISTIC    THIS- 
WORLDLY   GOSPEL  FOR  THE  COMING 
AGE  OF  CLASSLESS  EQUALITY 
AND  ECONOMIC  FREEDOM. 

Make  the  world  safe  for  a  classless  in- 
dustrialism by  turning  it  upside  down  with 
*•  workers  above  and  owners  below,  having 
the  privilege  of  remaining  down  to  idle 
and   die    or   coming   up    to   work   and    live. 

My  dear  Brother  and  Comrade : 

Your  letter  of  June  13th*  relative  to  the  meeting 
called  for  the  27th,  in  the  interest  of  a  more  radical 
socialist  movement  in  our  church,  came  duly  to  hand, 
and  its  invitation  to  attend,  or  at  least  write,  was 
highly  appreciated. 

My  days  for  attending  things  are,  I  fear,  past.  I 
did  not  feel  able  to  go  to  the  Annual  Convention  of 
the  Socialist  Party  of  Ohio,  which  met  much  nearer 
here  on  the  same  date,  June  27th,  and  ended  on  the 
29th  with  a  great  picnic — a  communion,  as  real  and 
holy,  as  was  ever  celebrated.  I  cannot  even  be  sure 
of  being  with  you  in  the  House  of  Bishops  during 
the  meeting  of  the  General  Convention  in  October. 

However,  I  intended  you  to  have  a  letter  and  set 
the  26th  aside  for  the  writing  of  it,  but  I  work  slowly 
now  and  its  hours  slipped  away  while  I  was  making 


*This  letter  was  written  in  July,  1919,  and  sent  to  the  press 
as  part  of  this  booklet  in  September,  1920.  In  the  interim  several 
of  its  representations  and  arguments  were  made  more  complete; 
therefore,  some  among  the  additions  bear  the  marks  of  dates 
belonging  to  later  months. — W.  M.  B. 


16        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

notes  until  only  one  was  left.  It  was  spent  in  trying 
to  condense  all  I  wanted  to  say  in  the  letter  into  a 
telegram.  What  I  regard  as  the  best  of  these  efforts 
was  taken  to  the  office  at  seven  p.  m.  on  that  day: 

Make  world  safe  for  economic  freedom  by  banishing 
Gods  from  skies,  and  capitalists  from  earth. 

Here  are  four  of  the  many  other  efforts:  (1)  Come 
over  and  help  us.  Abandon  Christian  Socialism  for 
Marxian  Communism;  (2)  Make  world  safe  for 
economic  freedom  by  turning  it  upside  down  with 
workers  above  and  owners  below;  (3)  Revolutionize 
capitalism  out  of  state  and  orthodoxy  out  of  church; 
(4)  Come  over  and  help  us.  Abandon  reformatory  for 
revolutionary  socialism. 

What  I  Wanted  you  to  understand  is  that,  in  my 
judgment,  there  can  be  no  deliverance  for  the  world 
from  the  troubles  by  which  it  is  overwhelmed  so  long 
as  theism  holds  the  religious  and  capitalism  the  politi- 
cal fields. 

I. 

Religion  and  politics  are  the  halves  of  the  sphere 
in  which  humanity  lives,  moves  and  has  its  social 
being.  Religion  is  the  ideal  and  politics  the 
practical  half  of  this  sphere.  Both  halves  naturally 
exist  as  the  result  of  the  same  natural  law  of  neces- 
sity: the  matter-force  law  which  makes  it  necessary 
for  a  man  to  feed,  clothe  and  shelter  his  body  in  order 
to  preserve  it  and  its  life. 

Marxian  socialism  is  at  once  this  religion  and  poli- 
tics, all  there  is  of  both  of  them  which  is  for  the  good 
of  the  world  as  a  whole. 

Marxian    socialism    is    a    revolutionary    movement 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  17 

towards  doing  away  with  the  existing  competitive 
system  for  producing  and  distributing  the  basic  ne- 
cessities of  life  (foods,  clothes-  and  houses)  for  the 
profit  of  a  few  parasites,  and  substituting  a  system  for 
making  and  distributing  them  for  the  use  of  all  work- 
ers. 

So  far  some  competing,  lying,  robbing,  enslaving 
system  for  the  production  and  distribution  of  these 
necessities  has  been  the  basis  of  every  religion  and 
politics — of  none  more  than  the  Christian  and  Ameri- 
can, and  they  with  the  rest  have  been  tried  in  the 
balance  of  experience  and  found  utterly  wanting.  In- 
deed, they  are  making  a  hell,  not  a  heaven,  of  the 
earth  in  general  and  of  our  country  in  particular. 

Christianism  as  a  religion  has  collapsed.  It  prom- 
ised to  secure  to  the  world  peace  and  good  will,  but 
it  has  never  had  more  of  strife  and  hate.  The  tremen- 
dous English-German  (or  if  you  prefer  German-Eng- 
lish) war  was  a  conflict  at  arms  between  the  most 
outstanding  among  Christian  nations  and  it  was  sol- 
emnly alleged  to  have  been  fought  for  the  high  pur- 
pose of  ending  such  conflicts;  but  in  reality  it  scat- 
tered the  hot  coals  of  war  throughout  the  world, 
several  of  which  were  fanned  into  blazing  by  its  so- 
called  peace  conference  and  others  are  ominously 
smouldering. 

Americanism  as  a  politics  has  collapsed.  It  prom- 
ised a  classless  government  of  all  the  people,  by  all 
the  people,  for  all  the  people,  but  has  instead  given  a 
government  of  a  class,  by  a  class,  for  a  class.  This 
class,  comprising  not  more  than  one  out  of  every  ten 
of  the  population,  is  the  capitalist  class  which  owns 
the  means  and  machines  for  the  production  of  the  ne- 


18        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

cessities  of  life  and  for  their  distribution,  a  class 
which,  as  such,  though  bearing  no  necessary  relation- 
ship to  either  one  of  the  branches  of  this  business,  yet 
realizes  enormous  profits  from  both,  profits  which 
are  wholly  at  the  expense  of  the  large  class,  contain- 
ing at  least  nine  out  of  every  ten,  which  does  all  the 
work  connected  with  the  making  of  the  machines  and 
the  operating  of  them. 

This  government  was  to  make  the  country  safe  for 
democracy  by  securing  to  it  the  privilege  of  free 
speech  and  free  assemblage,  the  existence  of  an  inde- 
pendent press  and  the  right  of  appeal  for  the  redress 
of  grievances;  but  our  fathers  did  not  have  any  too 
much  of  these  liberties,  we  have  had  less  and,  if  the 
competitive  system  for  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  commodities  for  the  profit  of  the  small  owning 
class  is  to  continue,  our  children  are  to  have  none. 

Indeed,  this  is  already  true  of  the  overwhelming 
majority,  the  working  class.  Its  representatives  have 
little  if  any  real  part  in  the  government.  They  are  al- 
most completely  subjected  to  the  rule  of  the  owning 
class.  There  never  has  been  a  body,  mind  and  soul 
destroying  slavery  which  equaled  theirs,  either  as  to 
the  number  of  men,  women  and  children  involved  in 
it,  or  as  to  the  degrees  of  misery  to  which  it  doomed 
its  victims. 

Nor  is  the  end  yet.  The  world  war  certainly  has 
taken  American  slavery  out  of  the  frying  pan  into  the 
fire,  rather  than  into  the  water. 

American  slaves  appeal  to  their  government  as 
Jewish  slaves  appealed  to  one  of  their  kings  for  re- 
lief and  receive  the  same  answer,  not  in  words  but  in 
deeds  which  speak  louder: 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  19 

Thy  father  made  our  yoke  grievous;  now  therefore 
make  thou  the  grievous  service  of  thy  father,  and  his 
heavy  yoke  which  he  put  upon  us,  lighter,  and  we  will 
serve  thee.  And  he  said  unto  them.  Depart  yet  for 
three  days,  then  come  again  to  me.  And  the  people  de- 
parted. So  all  the  people  came  the  third  day  as  the 
king  had  appointed  and  the  king  answered  them  roughly, 
saying:  My  father  made  your  yoke  heavy,  and  I  will 
add  to  your  yoke:  My  father  also  chastised  you  with, 
whips,  but  I  will  chastise  you  with  scorpions.  So'  when 
all  Israel  saw  that  the  king  harkened  not  urito  them,  the 
people  answered  the  king,  saying,  What  portion  have  we 
in  David? 

As  to  details,  history  does  not  exactly  repeat  itself 
and,  therefore,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  other  planets 
of  the  universe,  of  which  no  doubt  there  are  many 
billions,  are  inhabited  by  human  beings  of  the  same 
type  as  those  of  the  earth,  nor  that  its  men,  women 
and  children  are  to  have  their  bodies  reconstructed 
and  resurrected,  after  they  have  been  disintegrated 
by  death.  Such  beings  on  other  planets  and  such 
reconstructions  on  this  planet  would  in  every  case 
involve  a  detailed  repetition  of  infinitely  numerous 
processes  of  evolution  which  had  extended  through 
an  eternal  past. 

Yet,  in  every  part  of  the  universe  and  throughout 
all  eternity,  like  causes  ever  have  produced  and  ever 
shall  produce  like  effects.  If,  therefore,  the  course  of 
the  Judean  masters  towards  their  slaves  led  to  a  suc- 
cessful revolt  of  ten  out  of  twelve  tribes,  there  is 
every  reason  for  believing  that  the  parallel  course 
which  the  American  masters  are  pursuing  against 
their  slaves  will,  sooner  or  later,  issue  in  a  revolu- 
tion— a  revolution  which  shall  do  away  with  both 
masters  and  slaves,  leaving  us  with  a  classless  Amer- 


20        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

ica  and  a  government  concerned  with  the  making  of 
provisions  for  enabling  all  the  people  who  are  able 
and  willing  to  work  to  supply  themselves  in  abund- 
ance with  the  necessities  of  life  and  with  the  most 
desirable  among  the  luxuries,  rather  than  a  govern- 
ment which  provides  that  they  who  produce  nothing, 
shall  have  the  cream  and  top  milk  of  every  necessity 
and  the  whole  bottle  of  every  luxury,  leaving  of  the 
necessities  qnly  the  blue  milk  for  the  producers  of 
them  and  of  the  luxuries,  not  even  the  dregs. 

Under  the  proletarian  government  those  who  can 
but  will  not  work  will  be  allowed  to  starve  them- 
selves  into  a  better  mind  and  out  of  their  laziness. 
The  young  and  the  old,  the  sick  and  crippled  will 
have  their  rightful  maintenance  from  the  state  and 
out  of  the  best  of  everything. 

The  deliverance  of  the  world  from  commercial  im- 
perialism and  the  making  of  it  safe  for  industrial 
democracy  would  prevent  most  of  its  unnecessary 
suffering  and  this  great  salvation  is  above  all  else 
dependent  upon  a  knowledge  of  the  truth.  "Ye  shall 
know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free" — 
free  from  all  the  avoidable  ills  of  life,  among  them  the 
diabolical  trinity  of  evils,  war,  poverty  and  slavery. 

The  happiness  of  the  world  will  be  promoted  in 
extent  and  degree  in  proportion  as  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth  is  disseminated  by  a  twofold  revelation: 
(1)  the  truth  as  it  is  revealed  by  history  according  to 
the  Marxian  interpretation  thereof,  a  revelation  of  the 
truth  which  is  saving  the  world  from  the  robbing  im- 
positions of  the  capitalistic  interpretation  of  politics, 
and  (2)  the  truth  as  it  is  revealed  by  nature,  accord- 
ing to  the  Darwinian  interpretation  thereof,  a  revela- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  21 

tion  which  is  saving-  the  world  from  the  robbing'  im-' 
positions  of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations  of  re- 
ligion. 

Man  has  always  had  as  a  basis  for  his  thought, 
belief  and  action,  a  system  for  the  production  and 
distribution  of  the  necessities  of  life.  This  is  the  dis- 
covery of  Karl  Marx  which  is  known  as  the  scientific 
or  materialistic  interpretation  of  history. 

According  to  the  scientific  interpretation  of  history 
which  is  taught  by  naturalistic  socialism,  man  is  what 
he  is,  and  his  institutions  are  what  they  are,  because 
he  has  fed,  clothed  artd  housed  himself  as  he  has. 

According  to  the  traditional  interpretation  of  his- 
tory, which  is  taught  by  supernaturalistic  Christian- 
ism,  man  is  what  he  is  because  of  his  thinking,  believ- 
ing and  acting  with  reference  to  the  revelation  of  a 
god.  as  it  has  been  interpreted  by  his  inspired  repre- 
sentatives, the  great  prophets  and  statesmen,  like 
Isaiah  and  Luther,  Moses  and  Washington. 

Perhaps  the  best  proof  of  the  correctness  of  the 
scientific  or  naturalistic  explanation  of  the  career  of 
man  and  of  the  incorrectness  of  the  traditional  or  su- 
pernaturalistic one  is  afforded  by  the  history  of  mor- 
als, the  soul  of  both  religion  and  politics,  without 
which  neither  could  have  any  existence. 

Before  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  agriculture,  man 
was  dependent  for  his  food  upon  fruits  and  nuts, 
game  and  fish.  When  these  sources  of  sustenance 
failed,  the  tribes  living  in  the  same  neighborhood 
fought  with  each  other  in  order  that  the  victorious 
might  eat  the  vanquished. 

During  this  period  cannibalism  was  morally  right, 
and  it  probably  extended  through  at  least  two  hun- 


22        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

drOT  thousand  years,  even  into  the  Old  Testament 
times.  So  righteous  and  holy  was  it  that,  in  the 
course  of  time,  the  victims  were  recognized  as  saviour 
gods  and  the  drinking  of  their  blood  and  eating  of 
their  flesh  constituted  a  Lord's  Supper  in  which  the 
god  was  eaten. 

Cannibalism  is  the  basis  of  our  Sacrament  of  the 
holy  communion  of  bread  and  wine.  As  a  connecting 
link  between  these  extremes  there  was  the  form  of 
communion  which  consisted  in  the  eating  of  animal 
sacrifices.*  ' 

By  a  sacrament  with  such  an  origin,  you  and  I  ren- 
der our  highest  act  of  worship,  though  yours  is  still 
directed  towards  one  among  the  supernaturalistic 
divinities  and  mine  is  now  directed  towards  humanity. 
You  say  of  a  divinity :  Thou,  Lord,  hast  made  me  after 
tHihe  own  image  and  my  heart  cannot  be  at  rest  until 
I  find  rest  in  thee.  I  say  of  humanity:  Thou,  Lord, 
hast  made  me  after  thine  own  image  and  my  heart 
cannot  be  at  rest  until  it  finds  rest  in  thee. 

Within  the  social  realm,  humanity  is  my  new  divin- 
ity, and  your  divinity  (my  old  one)  is  a  symbol  of  it, 
or  else,  so  I  think,  he  is  at  best  a  fiction  and  at  worst 
a   superstition. 

You  will  be  surprised,  and  I  do  not  expect  you  to 
understand  me,  when  I  tell  you  that  by  translating 
the  services  and  hymns  from  the  language  of  my  old 
literalism  into  that  of  my  new  symbolism,  I  am  get- 
ting as  much  good  out  of  them  as  ever  and  indeed 


*For  a  brief  buf  conclusive  justification  of  this  much  criti- 
cised representation,  see  a  pamphlet  by  the  anthropologist,  J.  T. 
Lloyd,  entitled,  God-Eating :  A  Study  in  Christianity  and  Canni- 
balism which  may  be  had  for  twenty-five  cents  from  the  Truth 
Seeker,  49  Vesey  St.,  New  York  City,  N.  Y.— W.  M.  B. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  23 

more.  I  love  the  services,  especially  that  great  one, 
the  Holy  Communion,  and  the  hymns,  especially  those 
great  ones.  Guide  Me  O  Thou  Great  Jehovah;  Lead, 
Kindly  Light;  Abide  With  Me;  and  Jesus,  Lover  of 
My  Soul. 

My  experience  has  convinced  me  that  the  senti- 
mental and  poetical  elements  in  religion,  to  which  I 
attach  as  much  importance  as  ever,  are  as  readily 
excited  and  securely  sustained  by  fixing  thought  and 
sympathy  upon  the  martyred  human  saviour,  the 
working  class,  as  upon  a  crucified  divine  saviour,  who 
after  all,  as  the  suffering  son  of  God,  is  but  a  symbol 
of  the  suffering  sons  and  daughters  of  man,  the 
workers,  from  whom  all  good  things  come. 

If  grace  at  dinner  means  anything,  it  is  addressed 
to  a  god  who  is  the  symbol  of  the  many  workers  who 
did  the  innumerable  things  necessary  to  the  producing 
and  serving  of  it,  without  whom  there  would  be  noth- 
ing of  all  the  good  things  on  the  table. 

In  the  representation  about  my  pleasure  in  the 
services  of  the  church  and  their  value  to  me,  and  in 
many  representations  scattered  throughout  this  let- 
ter, I  have  in  mind  the  question  of  an  unanswered 
letter  of  yours,  bearing  date,  February  25th.  1919,  the 
one  in  which  you  ask,  in  effect,  by  what  right  a  man 
can  remain  in  an  institution  after  he  has,  as  I  have, 
abandoned  its  chief  doctrines  and,  aims  as  they  are 
authoritatively  interpreted. 

The  right  of  revolution  is  the  one  by  which  I  justify 
my  course,  and  surely  no  consistent  Protestant  Chris- 
tian or  American  citizen  will  doubt  the  solidity  of  this 
ground ;  for  Protestantism  and  Americanism  had  their 
origin  in  revolutions. 


24        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Our  national  declaration  of  independence  contains 
this  famous  justification  of  political  revolutions,  and 
it  is  equally  applicable  to  religious  ones,  for  religion 
and  politics  are  but  the  ideal  and  practical  halves  of 
the  same  social  reality: 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men 
are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that  among  these,  are  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuits  of  happiness.  That  to  secure 
these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  de- 
riving their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  govern- 
ed :  that,  whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes  de- 
structive of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to 
alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  new  government, 
laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and  organizing 
its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most 
likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  happiness.  Prudence,  in- 
deed, will  dictate  that  governments  long  established, 
should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes ; 
and,  accordingly,  all  experience  hath  shown,  that  man- 
kind are  more  disposed  to  suffer,  while  evils  are  suffer- 
able,  than  to  right  themselves  by  abolishing  the  form  to 
which  they  are  accustomed.  But  when  a  long  train  of 
abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the  same  ob- 
ject, evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them  under  absolute 
despotism,  it  is  their  right — ^it  is  their  duty — ^to  throw 
off  such  government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for 
their  future  security. 

Jesus  was  nothing  if  he  was  not  a  revolutionist. 
Anyhow,  his  alleged  mother  is  authoritatively  repre- 
sented as  believing  him  to  have  been  foreordained  as 
one,  for  this  song  is  put  into  her  mouth : 

He  hath  showed  strength  with  his  arm:  he  hath 
scattered  the  proud  in  the  imagination  of  their  hearts. 

He  hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seat:  and 
hath  exalted  the  humble  and  meek. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  25 

He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things:  and  the 
rich  he  hath  sent  empty  away. 

This  Christian  socialism,  like  Bolshevik  socialism, 
turns  the  idle  rich  empty  away;  but,  whereas  the 
Christian  gives  them  no  chance  to  get  anything  to  eat, 
the  Bolshevik  allows  them  to  have  as  much  as  the 
poor,  if  they  will  work  as  hard.  ^ 

Assuming  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  there  may 
have  been  an  historical  Jesus  who  taught  some  of  the 
doctrines,  in  accordance  with  the  representations  of 
the  gospel,  which  are  attributed  to  him,  I  am  never- 
theless justified  in  claiming  that  he  was  quite  as 
heretical  touching  the  faith  of  orthodox  Judaism  as  I 
am  touching  that  of  orthodox  Christianism. 

As  to  the  Jewish  faith  he  said,  in  effect,  of  himself 
Avhat  I  say  of  myself:  I  have  all  of  the  potentialities 
of  my  own  life  within  myself.  I  and  my  god,  Nature, 
are  one.  He  dwells  in  me  and  I  in  him,  and  we  are  on 
the  "earth,  not  in  the  sky. 

As  to  the  Jewish  church  and  state,  Jesus  taught 
that  they  had  become  utterly  antiquated  and  that  it 
was  the  mission  of  himself  and  disciples  to  establish 
a  new  heaven,  that  is  to  remodel  the  church ;  and  a 
new  earth,  that  is,  to  remodel  the  state;  both  remodel- 
ings  being  with  reference  to  the  service  of  humanity 
by  enlightening  its  darkness  and  alleviating  its  misery 
here  and  now,  rather  than  teaching  it  to  look  for  light 
and  happiness  elsewhere  and  elsewhen. 

According  to  the  showing  of  the  science  of  biblical 
criticism  there  is  more  than  one  Jesus  of  whom  we 
have  an  account  in  the  New  Testament:  (1)  a 
naturalistic,  this-worldly,  pacific  man,  Jesus,  and  (2) 


26        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

a  supernaturalistic,  other-worldly,  belligerent  God- 
man,  Jesus,  the  Jesus  of  orthodox  Christians. 

There  are  two  Jesuine  revolutionists.  One  above 
ground,  who  proclaims  to  all  from  housetops  his  pro- 
gram for  supplanting  the  dictatorship  of  the  masters 
by  that  of  the  slaves,  and  an  underground  one,  who 
teaches  it  to  the  initiated  only  in  cellars,  his  idea 
b€ing  that  the  pearls  of  the  slave's  gospel  must  not 
be  cast  before  the  swinish  masters,  lest  they  turn  and 
rend  its  preachers.  He  who  lived  and  was  rent  by 
crucifixion,  if  such  a  personage  existed,  was  the 
cellar-Jesus.  We  must  conclude  this  to  have  been 
the  case,  because  we  know  the  masters  have  ever 
feared  the  underground  revolutionists^  but  never  the 
housetop  ones. 

As  for  the  faith  and  church  of  orthodox  Christian- 
ism  there  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  he  would  be 
any  more  loyal  to  either  than  am  I.  His  loyalty  was 
to  the  truth  and  to  the  proletarian,  and  they  (this 
faith  and  church)  are  disloyal  to  both,  being  ever  on 
the  side  of  tradition  against  science,  and  on  the  side 
of  the  owner  against  the  worker. 

Jesus  remained  in  the  Jewish  church,  in  spite  of  his 
many  and  great  heresies,  until  he  was  put  out  by 
death.  My  contention  is  that  in  view  of  this  example, 
whether  it  be,  as  you  think,  of  an  historical  or,  as  I 
think,  of  a  dramatic  character,  there  is  no  reason  why 
I  should  voluntarily  go  out  of  the  Christian  church. 

Religion  in  general  and  Christianity  in  particular 
are  nothing  unless  they  are  embodiments  of  morality, 
and  morality  does  not  consist  in  professions  of  belief 
in  a  god  and  his  revelations  as  they  are  recorded  in  a 
bible  and  condensed  in  a  creed,  but  in  a  desire  and 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  27 

effort  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature  in 
order  that,  by  conformity  to  them,  life  may  be  made 
longer  and  happier. 

When  this  desire  exists  and  this  effort  is  made 
with  reference  to  one's  own  self,  they  constitute  mor- 
ality; when  with  reference  to  one's  own  family  and 
associates,  they  constitute  religion,  and  when  with 
reference  to  all  others  of  contemporary  and  future 
generations,  they  constitute  Christianity. 

But  in  making  such  distinctions  the  fact  should  not 
be  lost  sight  of  that  at  bottom  there  is  no  difference 
between  morality,  religion  and  Christianity.  They  are 
synonyms  for  the  same  virtues,  the  desire  and  effort 
to  know  and  live  the  truth  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  do- 
ings of  nature.  There  are  no  other  revelations  of  the 
truth,  nor  is  there  any  other  morality,  religion  or 
Christianity. 

Communism  is  for  me  the  one  comprehensive  term 
which  is  a  synonym  at  once  of  morality,  religion  and 
Christianity.  Marxian  and  Bolshevikian  socialism  are 
halves  of  one  thing,  the  theoretical  and  the  practical 
half.  Marxism  is  socialism  in  theory.  Bolshevism  is 
(perhaps  imperfectly  as  yet)  socialism  in  practice. 

As  long  as  gods  dominate  the  sky  and  capitalists 
prevail  upon  the  earth,  the  world  will  be  safe  for  com- 
mercial imperialism,  having  a  small  heaven  for  the 
few  rich  masters  and  a  large  hell  for  the  many  poor 
slaves. 

Come  over  and  help  us  make  the  world  safe  for 
industrial  democracy  by  banishing  the  personal,  con- 
scious gods  from  the  sky  and  the  lying,  robbing  capi- 
talists from  the  earth. 

But  in  coming  there  is  no  need  for  leaving  your 


28        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

church  any  more  than  there  is  for  leaving  your  state. 
During  the  short  time  which  is  for  me,  before  the 
night  cometh  in  which  no  man  can  work,  I  shall  re- 
main in  both  as  long  as  the  powers  that  be  allow  it, 
and  shall  do  what  little  I  can  to  revolutionize  them— 
revolutionize  the  church  into  a  school  for  the  teaching 
of  truth  instead  of  lies,  and  revolutionize  the  state  into 
a  hive  for  the  making  of  commodities  for  the  use  of 
all  instead  of  for  the  profit  of  a  few.  In  doing  this  I 
shall  be  following  in  the  very  footsteps  of  the  human 
Jesus., 

After  it  was  discovered  that  the  ground,  by  plant- 
ing and  cultivating,  would  produce  the  necessities  of 
life,  when  a  tribe  found  that  it  had  too  little  of  it  for 
its  growing  population,  it  would  go  to  war  with  the 
weaker  among  adjacent  tribes  for  the  purpose  of  se- 
curing its  territory;  but  from  this  on  the  vanquished 
were  not  eaten,  and  it  was  morally  wrong  to  eat  them. 
They  were  kept  alive  and  put  to  work  at  raising 
harvests  for  their  conquerors,  hence  arose  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery,  and  hence  its  moral  rightness  even 
in  this  country  of  the  free,  down  to  the  beginning  of 
the  generation  to  which  I  belong. 

However,  human  slavery  has  never  ended,  nor  will 
it  ever  end  while  the  competitive  system  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  necessities  of  life  for  profit  rather  than 
use  continues.  Human  slavery  is,  so  to  speak,  the 
basic  ingredient  of  this  system. 

Speaking  broadly,  there  have  been  three  forms  of 
human  slavery — the  chattel,  feudal  and  wage  slaveries 
— the  third  much  worse  than  the  first,  and  the  second 
intermediary  between  them. 

The  chattel  slave,  as  the  adjective  signifies,  was  the 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  29 

property  of  his  master,  as  much  so  as  were  the  horse 
or  the  mule  with  which  he  worked,  and  he  was  cared 
for  in  much  the  same  way  and  for  about  the  same  rea- 
son. 

The  feudal  slave  was  as  really  a  chattel  as  was  his 
predecessor,  only  he  had  to  care  for  himself  to  a 
greater  extent;  and,  more  was  expected  from  him  of 
accomplishment  for  the  opulence  and  glory  of  the 
master,  especially  insofar  as  these  depended  upon  the 
success  of  his  wars. 

The  wage  slave  is,  likewise,  as  really  owned  by  his 
master  as  was  the  chattel  or  the  feudal  slave;  but,  if 
the  master  has  no  need  for  his  service,  he  is  altogether 
down  and  out.  as  the  feudal  slave  was  not  and  still 
less  the  chattel,  and  he  has  accomplished  at  work  and 
in  war  at  least  ten  times  more  for  his  master  than  did 
either  of  his  predecessors. 

So  far  man  has  produced  and  distributed  the  neces- 
sities of  life  by  a  competitive  system.  The  existing 
form  of  this  competition  is  known  as  capitalism.  It 
has  supplanted,  or  at  least  overshadowed,  every  other 
form  and  is,  so  to  speak,  monarch  of  all  it  surveys. 

The  system  as  it  now  stands  divides  the  world  into 
two  spheres — a  small  one,  in  which  a  few  live  sur- 
feitingly  «by  owning,  and  a  large  one,  in  which  the 
many  live  starvingly  by  working;  and,  yet,  ultimately, 
absolutely  everything  for  both  depends  upon  the 
worker  and  nothing  at  all  on  the  owner. 

Yes,  the  worker  is  indispensable  to  the  owner,  as 
much  so  as  (to  use  the  classical  illustration)  the  dog 
to  the  flea ;  but  the  owner  is  no  more  indispensable  to 
the  worker  than  a  flea  to  a  dog.     As  dogs  would  be 


30        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

much  better  off  without  fleas,  so  would  workers  with- 
out owners. 

The  discovery  that  the  itch  is  caused  by  a  parasite 
was  of  an  epoch  making  character  because  it  led  to 
the  discovery  that  many,  if  not  most  of  the  diseases 
by  which  mankind  and  also  animal  kind  are  afflicted 
are  of  a  parasitical  character.  This  is  as  true  of  the 
social  organism  as  of  the  physical.  Capitalism  is  the 
tape  worm  of  society. 

The  existence  of  the  master  and  slave  classes  inevi- 
tably gives  rise  to  four  struggles:  (1)  the  struggle 
of  the  slaves  with  the  master  for  better  conditions, 
issuing  in  rebellions;  (2)  the  struggle  between  mas- 
ters for  advantages  in  markets,  issuing  in  wars;  (3) 
the  struggle  between  the  slaves  for  jobs,  issuing  in  a 
body  and  soul  destroying  poverty ;  and  (4)  the  strug- 
gle of  the  slaves  with  the  master  for  a  reversal  of 
conditions,  issuing  in  revolutions. 

All  this  struggling  between  the  classes  and  within 
them  tends  toward  two  results  with  both  classes. 

In  the  case  of  the  master  class,  these  results  are  the 
making  of  the  rich  fewer,  and  the  remaining  few 
richer. 

In  the  case  of  the  slave  class,  these  results  are  the 
making  of  the  miserable  poor  more  numerous,  and  all 
less  happy. 

While  capitalism  stands,  all  talk  about  peace  on 
earth  and  good  will  among  men  will  be  so  much  hy- 
pocrisy; for,  until  it  falls,  the  world  will  be  divided 
into  the  slave  and  master  classes  and  the  four  con- 
tentions mentioned  above  with  their  results  will  con- 
tinue to  fill  it  with  hatred  and  strife. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  31 

II. 

The  overthrow  of  capitalism  in  Russia  is  the  great- 
est event  in  the  history  of  the  world  and  it  has  con- 
verted International  Socialism  (the  Marxian  revolu- 
tionary kind)  from  a  theory^  into  a  condition. 

Theories  come  and  go.  Conditions  remain  and 
work.  From  now  on  revolutionary  socialism  will  be 
working,  night  and  day,  with  might  and  main,  here 
and  there,  everywhen  and  everywhere,  and  its  three 
herculean  tasks  are:  (1)  to  dethrone  the  great  impe- 
rialist, competitive  capitalism;  (2)  to  enthrone  the 
great  democrat,  co-operative  industrialism ;  and  (3) 
to  make  the  world  safe  for  an  industrial  classless  de- 
mocracy. 

In  less  than  three  years,  revolutionary  socialism  in 
Russia  has  accomplished  more  of  these  three  tasks  for 
the  world,  than  all  the  states  and  all  the  churches  with 
all  their  wars  have  done  in  the  whole  course  of  man's 
career,  extending  through  at  least  two  hundred  thous- 
and years.  Indeed,  they  never  did  anything  to  these 
ends.  On  the  contrary,  what  progress  has  been  made 
towards  them  was  made  in  spite  of  their  strenuous 
opposition  at  every  step. 

Revolutionary  socialism  is  a  world  movement  to- 
wards the  deliverance  of  the  producing  slave  from  the 
non-producing  master  who  has  robbed  him  of  the 
fruits  of  his  toil  and  left  him  half  dead  on  the  wayside 
— the  only  eflfective  movement  to  this  humanitarian 
end. 

Revolutionary  socialism  or  communism  is  the  Good 
Samaritan  of  the  despoiled  and  wounded  laborer.  The 
reformatory  kinds  of  socialism  are  so  many  priests  and 
Levites  who  pass  by  on  the  other  side. 


32        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Of  no  reformatory  socialism  is  this  more  true  than 
of  the  Christian  kind.  Christian  socialism  is  abso- 
lutely worthless,  and  its  utter  worthlessness  is  due  to 
the  essentially  parasitic  character  of  supernaturalistic 
or  orthodox  Christianity. 

Until  the  reformation,  Christianity  was  dominated 
by  monks — parasites  who  lived  by  begging,  lying,  and 
persecuting;  and  since  then  by  capitalists — parasites 
who  live  by  robbing,  lying  and  warring. 

Monks  and  capitalists  have  this  in  common,  that 
they  are  natives  of  the  realm  of  parasitism. 

We  shall  never  have  peace  on  earth  and  good  will 
among  men  until  we  have  a  parasiteless  humanity, 
and  we  must  wait  for  this  until  we  have  a  classless 
world.    Parasitism  is  a  boon  companion  of  classism. 

Nor  can  the  earth  ever  be  rid  of  its  parasites  until 
the  celestial  world  is  rid  of  the  class  gods  which  capi- 
talists have  made  in  their  own  image  and  likeness,  nor 
until  the  terrestrial  world  is  rid  of  the  class  states  and 
codes,  churches  and  gospels  which  their  respective 
class  kings  or  presidents  and  their  class  priests  or 
preachers  have  had  the  gods  of  their  making  impose 
upon  this  world,  in  accordance  with  their  interests 
and  in  the  furtherance  of  their  lying,  robbing,  warring 
schemes  for  the  promotion  of  them. 

Neither  capitalism  nor  Christianism  is  anything,  ex- 
cept insofar  as  it  is  a  system  of  parasitism  and  as 
parasitic  systems  they  have  striking  resemblances, 
nearly  as  many  and  close  as  indistinguishable  twins. 

Both  have  gods,  churches  and  priesthoods  and  these 
are  in  each  case  nothing  but  symbols. 

However,  the  god  of  capitalism,  though  only  a  sym- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  33 

bol,  is  nevertheless  real  gold,  below  a  real  vault,  and 
nearly  all  the  world  sincerely  worships  it. 

But  the  god  of  Christianism,  though  none  the  less 
symbolic,  but  rather  more  so,  is  an  unreal  imaginary 
spirit,  a  magnified  man  without  a  body,  above  an 
imaginary  vault,  and  only  a  very  small  part  of  the 
world  sincerely  worships  him. 

International  socialism  of  the  Marxian  or  Russian 
type,  is  for  those  who  starvingly  live  by  working,  the 
most  uplifting  thing  in  the  world,  and  for  those  who 
surfeitingly  live  by  owning,  it  is  the  most  depressing 
thing  in  the  world. 

Wise  people  consider  theories  without  losing  too 
much,  if  any,  sleep  on  their  account,  but  they  study 
conditions  and  lie  awake  over  them. 

•Millions  of  wise  Americans  have,  in  the  past,  been 
studying  socialism  as  a  theory  but,  in  the  future,  they 
will  study  it  as  a  condition,  in  the  only  way  by  which 
it  can  rightly  and  adequately  be  studied — the  way  of 
reading  its  official  documents,  accredited  periodicals 
and  books.  Of  all  such,  the  most  notable  is  the  Com- 
munist Manifesto  by  Marx  and  Engels. 

This  Manifesto  is  the  Marxian  gospel.  I  read  two 
pages  in  it  every  day  as  faithfully  as  ever  I  read  a 
:hapter  in  the  Jesuine  gospel,  and  with  much  greater 
profit;  for,  whereas  the  gospel  of  Marx  is  exclusively 
:oncerned  with  this  terrestrial  world,  about  which  I 
enow  much  and  for  which  I  can  do  a  little,  the  gospel 
)f  Jesus  is  as  exclusively  concerned  with  a  celestial 
vorld,  about  which  I  know  nothing  and  for  which  I 
rannot  do  the  least.    Here,  as  a  sample  of  this  gospel, 

give  half  of  yesterday's  reading  and  most  of  today's: 


34        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

The  immediate  aim  of  the  communists  (or  socialists) 
is  the  same  as  that  of  all  the  other  proletarian  parties; 
formation  of  the  proletariat  into  a  class,  overthrow  of 
the  bourgeois  (capitalist)  supremacy  and  conquest  of 
political  power  Ijy  the  proletariat. 

The  theoretical  conclusions  of  the  communists  are 
in  no  way  based  oh  ideas  or  principles  that  have  been 
invented,  or  discovered,  by  this  or  that  would-be  uni- 
versal reformer. 

They  merely  express,  in  general  terms,  actual  re- 
lations springing  from  an  existing  class  struggle,  from 
a  historical  rnovement  going  on  under  our  very  eyes. 
The  abolition'  of  existing  property  relations  is  not  at 
all  a  distinctive  feature  of  communism. 

All  property  relations  in  the  past  have  continually 
been  subject  to  historical  change  consequent  upon  the 
change  in  historical  conditions. 

The  French  Revolution,  for  example,  abolished  feudal 
property  in  favor  of  bourgeois  (capitalist)  property. 

The  distinguishing  feature  of  communism  is  not  th^ 
abolition  of  property  generally,  but  the  abolition  of  bour- 
geois property.  But  modern  bourgeois  private  property 
is  the  final  and  most  complete  expression  of  the  system  of 
producing  and  appropriating  products,  that  is  based  on 
class  antagonism,  on  the  exploitation  of  the  many  by  the 
few. 

In  this  sense,  the  theory  of  the  communists  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  single  sentence:  Abolition  of  private 
property.  "^ 

We  communists  have  been  reproached  with  the  de- 
sire of  abolishing  the  right  of  personally  acquiring  prop- 
erty as  the  fruit  of  a  man's  own  labor,  which  property 
is  alleged  to  be  the  ground-work  of  all  personal  free- 
dom, activity  and  independence. 

Hard- won,  self-acquired,  self-earned  property!  Do 
you  mean  the  property  of  the  petty  artisan  and  of  the 
small  peasant,  a  form  of  property  that  preceded  the 
bourgeois  form?  There  is  no  need  to  abolish  that;  the 
development  of  industry  has,  to  a  great  extent,  already 
destroyed  it,  and  is  still  destroying  it  daily. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  35 

Or  do  you  mean  modern  bourgeois  private  property? 

But  does  wage-labor  create  any  property  for  the  labor- 
er? Not  a  bit.  It  creates  capital,  i.  e.,  that  kind  of  prop- 
erty which  exploits  wage-labor,  and  which  cannot  in- 
crease except  upon  condition  of  begetting  a  new  supply 
of  wage-labor  for  fresh  exploitation.  Property,  in  its 
present  form,  is  based  on  the  antagonism  of  capital  and 
wage-labor.  Let  us  examine  both  sides  of  this  antagon- 
ism. 

To  be  a  capitalist  is  to  have  not  only  a  purely  per- 
sonal, but  a  social  status  in  production.  Capital  is  a 
collective  product,  and  only  by  the  united  action  of 
many  members,  nay,  in  the  last  resort,  only  by  the  united 
action  of  all  members  of  society,  can  it  be  set  in  motion. 

Capital  is  therefore  not  a  personal,  it  is  a  social 
power. 

When,  therefore,  capital  is  converted  into  common 
property,  into  the  property  of  all  members  of  society, 
personal  property  is  not  thereby  transformed  into  social 
property.  It  is  only  the  social  character  of  the  property 
that  is  changed.     It  loses  its  class-character. 

Let  us  now  take  wage-labor: 

The  average  price  of  wage-labor  is  the  minimum 
wage,  i.  e.,  that  quantum  of  the  means  of  subsistence 
which  is  absolutely  requisite  to  keep  the  laborer  in  bare 
existence  as  a  laborer.  What  therefore  the  wage  laborer 
appropriates  by  means  of  his  labor  merely  suffices  to  pro- 
long and  reproduce  a  bare  existence.  We  by  no  means  in- 
tend, to  abolish  this  personal  appropriation  of  the  products 
of  labor,  an  appropriation  that  is  mad,e  for  the  mainte- 
nance and  reproduction  of  human  life,  and  that  leaves  no 
surplus  wherewith  to  command  the  labor  of  others.  All 
that  we  want  to  do  away  with  is  the  miserable  character 
of  this  appropriation,  under  which  the  laborer  lives 
merely  to  increase  capital,  and  is  allowed  to  live  only 
insofar  as  the  interest  of  the  ruling  class  requires  it. 

In  bourgeois  society,  living  labor  is  but  a  means  to  in- 
crease accumulated  labor.  In  communist  society,  ac- 
cumulated labor  is  but  a  means  to  widen,  to  enrich,  to 
promote  the  existence  of  the  laborer. 


36        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

In  bourgeois  society,  therefore,  the  past  dominates  the 
present;  in  communist  society,  the  present  dominates 
the  past.  In  bourgeois  society  capital  is  independent  and 
has  individuality,  while  the  living  person  is  dependent 
and  has  no  individuality. 

And  the  abolition  of  this  state  of  things  is  called  by 
the  bourgeois,  ^abolition  of  individuality  and  freedom! 
And  rightly  so.  The  abolition  of  bourgeois  individuality, 
bourgeois  independence,  and  bourgeois  freedom  is  un- 
doubtedly aimed  at. 

The  version  of  the  Marxian  gospel  which  we  have 
in  the  Manifesto  is  among  the  first  of  its  versions.  It 
was  published  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 
Within  the  short  period  which  has  intervened,  it  has 
changed  nearly  all  of  the  ideas  of  a  large  and  rapidly 
growing  part  of  every  nation  about  almost  everything 
social;  and  before  the  middle  of  the  present  century, 
it  will  revolutionize  all  nations  as  it  has  P.ussia. 

Ludendorff,  the  greatest  among  the  military  au- 
thorities in  Germany,  saw  and  terribly  feared  this,  and 
did  what  he  could  to  call  Europe  to  arms  to  prevent 
it.     In  his  almost  frantic  appeal  he  said: 

Bolshevism  is  advancing  now  and  in  a  gradual  prog- 
ress from  east  to  west  and  is  crushing  everything  be- 
tween the  midland  sea  and  the  Atlantic  ocean.  It  was 
easy  to  foresee  that  the  Bolshevist  armies  would  attack 
toward  the  middle  of  May  and  defeat  the  Poles,  as  they 
have  now  done.  The  world  at  large  must,  therefore, 
figure  with  a  Bolshevist  advance  in  Poland  toward  Berlin 
and  Prague. 

Poland's  fall  will  entail  the  fall  of  Germany  and 
Czecho-Slovakia.  Their  neighbors  to  the  north  and 
south  will  follow.  Fate  steps  along  with  elementary 
force.  Let  no  one  believe  it  will  come  to  a  stand  with- 
out enveloping  Italy,  France  and  England.  Not  even 
the  Seven  Seas  can  stop  it. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  37 

Under  the  capitalist  system  most  "people  are,  and 
must  continue  to  be,  slaves.  If  you  are  a  slave  (all 
wage  earners,  as  such,  are  slaves)  the  socialist  litera- 
ture, the  greatest  of  all  literatures,  will  thrill  you  with 
the  hope  of  liberty.  Read,  note  and  inwardly  digest  it. 
No  wage  earner  who  does  this  will  ever  again  vote 
either  the  Democratic  or  the  Republican  ticket.  As  a 
whole  this  literature  is  a  brilliantly  illuminating  and 
almost  resistlessly  persuasive  explanation  of  the  most 
sane,  the  most  salutary  and  withal  the  most  promising 
movement  towards  the  freeing  of  all  toiling  men. 
women  and  children  (nine  of  every  ten)  from  their 
body  and  soul  destroying  slavery. 

Both  Socrates  and  Jesus  are  recorded  as  teaching 
that  the  saviour  of  the  world  is  truth.  Among  saving 
truths  (there  is  no  truth  without  some  saving  effi- 
cacy) the  greatest  is  the  one  which  was  discovered 
and  formulated  concurrently  by  Karl  Marx  and  Fred- 
erick Engels  and  it  is  in  substance  this:  all  which 
makes  for  the  good  of  mankind  ultimately  depends 
wholly  upon  the  laborious  constructors  and  operators 
of  the  machines  for  the  cultivation,  production  and 
distribution  of  the  necessities  of  life,  not  at  all  upon 
the  owners  of  these  machines,  who  at  best  are  idlers 
and  at  worst  schemers,  and  in  any  case  parasites. 

In  the  beginning  was  Work.  All  things  were  made 
hv  it :  and  without  it  was  not  anything  made  that  was 
made.  In  it  was  life:  and  the  life  was  the  light  of 
men. 

The  opening  verses  of  the  gospel  according  to  John 
have  been  thus  interpreted.  The  commentator  ac- 
knowledges that  they  do  not  read  so  now,  but  contends 
for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  that,  if  there  ever  was 


38        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

any  truth  in  them,  something  to  this  effect  must  have 
been  their  original  reading.  Certainly  there  is  no 
truth  in  them  as  they  have  come  down  to  us. 

This  representation  (which  is  that  productive 
labor  is  the  saviour  of  the  world,  its  real  god,  the ' 
divinity  in  which  we  live,  move  and  have  our  being) 
is  the  great  truth,  the  gospel  of  International  Marx- 
ism, the  greatest  of  all  movements,  the  movement 
which  carries  the  only  rational  hope  for  the  freeing  of 
mankind  from  all  its  unnecessary  suffering — and  the 
most  poignant  sufferings,  those  imposed  by  the  great 
trinity  of  evils:  war,  poverty  and  slavery — are  not 
necessary. 

Capitalism  and  Christianism  are  alike  not  only  in 
having  gods  which  are  symbols,  but  also  in  having 
great  buildings  set  apart  for  the  worshipping  of  them. 

The  representatives  of  the  god  below  the  vault  wor- 
ship him  in  banks  under  the  leadership  of  a  threefold 
ministry :  presidents,  cashiers  and  bookkeepers. 

The  representatives  of  the  god  above  the  vault  wor- 
ship him  in  churches  under  the  leadership  of  a  three- 
fold ministry:  bishops,  priests  and  deacons. 

Speaking  particularly  of  Christianity  and  America 
the  trouble  is  not  at  all  with  our  Brother  Jesus  and 
Uncle  Sam  divinities,  but  wholly  with  what  they  sym- 
bolize, capitalism — the  god  of  liars,  robbers  and  war- 
riors. 

What  our  Brother  Jesus  and  Uncle  Sam  should 
alike  symbolize  are  the  classless  divinities:  (1)  law, 
the  king  of  the  physical  realm,  and  (2)  truth,  the 
queen  of  the  moral  realm. 

Law  is  what  nature  does.  There  is  no  other  law, 
and  this  law  is  the  god  of  the  physical  realm.  The  gods 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  39 

of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations  of  religion 
(Jesus,  Jehovah,  Allah,  Buddha,  and  all  the  rest)  are 
personifications,  or  symbols,  of  this  god,  or  else  they 
are  superstitions. 

This  representation  is  proved  in  practice  to  be  true, 
on  the  one  hand,  by  the  fact  that  no  one  needs  to  live 
with  reference  to  any  among  these  gods,  not  even  the 
god,  Jesus;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  fact  that 
none  who  fail  to  live  with  reference  to  this  god,  law, 
lives  at  all. 

Every  act  of  nature,  that  is,  every  physical  and  psy- 
chical phenomenon  which  enters  into  the  constitution 
of  the  universe,  is  a  word  of  the  revelation  of  this  god, 
and  there  is  no  other  revelation.  All  men  must  con- 
stantly live  with  reference  to  it  or  else  immediately 
die. 

Truth  is  the  interpretation  of  this  law  in  the  light 
of  human  experience,  reason  and  investigation  with 
the  view  of  making  human  life,  that  of  self  and  of  all 
who  come  or  can  be  brought  within  the  range  of  one's 
influence,  as  long  and  happy  as  possible. 

Any  one  who  desires  and  endeavors  tightly  to  learn, 
interpret  and  live  this  law  to  these  ends  is  moral.  In 
everything  is  he  wholly  good  and  in  nothing  at  all  bad. 

Religion  is  not  anything  good,  except  only  as  it  is 
a  synonym  of  such  morality,  and  this  is  equally  true 
of  politics. 

War  shortens  much  life  and  fills  more  with  misery, 
hence  it  is  utterly  immoral,  and  this  is  equally  true  of 
poverty  and  slavery. 

In  what  I  say  here,  and  in  some  other  places,  about 
war  being  essentially  evil,  the  wars  referred  to  are 
those  by  which  the  world  has  been  cursed  through  all 


40        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

the  ages — wars  between  different  groups  of  owners 
with  conflicting  interests,  not  the  war  between  own- 
ers and  workers  which  is  now  on  and  must  be  fought 
to  a  finish.  This  war  will  bless,  not  curse,  the  world,' 
because  it  is  for  the  emancipation  ©f  the  slave  class, 
not  for  the  enrichment  of  one  group  of  the  masters  at 
the  expense  of  another  group  and  this  at  the  cost  of 
increased  misery  to  all  the  slaves  of  both  groups. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  representation  that  real 
religion  and  real  politics  alike  consist  in  desiring  and 
endeavoring  to  make  terrestrial  life  (there  is  no  celes- 
tial life  of  which  aught  is  known)  long  and  happy, 
the  advocate  of  war  is  the  worst  of  heretics  against 
Christianism  and  the  worst  of  traitors  against  Amer- 
icanism. 

War  is  a  necessary  characteristic  of  vegetables  and 
animals,  because  they  cannot  make  and  operate  ma- 
chines for  the  supplying  of  their  needs. 

Peace  is  the  necessary  characteristic  of  humans,  be- 
cause they  can  make  and  operate  machines  for  the 
supplying  of  their  needs. 

Wars  between  capitalists  are  inevitabilities,  as  much 
so  as  the  wars  between  two  hungry  dogs,  when  one 
has  a  bone  upon  which  the  lives  of  both  depend.  The 
only  difference  between  capitalists  and  dogs  is,  that 
dogs  do  their  ©wn  fighting,  whereas  capitalists  first 
rob  the  laborers  who  produce  their  commodities,  and 
then  persuade  or  compel  them  to  fight  their  battles 
with  fellow  capitalists  in  their  competitive  eft'orts  to 
distribute  them. 

On  the  one  hand  it  is  true  that  a  few  capitalists  do 
lose  money  in  wars,  and  still  fewer  their  lives,  but  on 
the  other  hand  it  is  equally  true  that  the  majority  of 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  41 

them  are  made  richer  and  that  producing  and  distrib- 
uting laborers  ultimately  bear  every  cent  of  the  enor- 
mous financial  burden,  and  that  for  every  machine 
owning  master  who  is  killed  or  wounded  there  are  a 
hundred  wage-earning  slaves  of  whom  this  is  true. 

Yet  neither  the  making  nor  operating  of  machines 
constitutes  a  man  a  human.  It  is  co-operation  which 
does  this.  Nor  will  co-operation  in  itself  suffice.  Bees 
and  ants  co-operate  and  even  capitalists  do  so,  yet 
with  all  their  co-operating  bees  and  ants  remain  ani- 
mals and  so  do  capitalists.  The  co-operation  which 
converts  man-animals  into  humans  is  the  one  which 
is  purposely  inaugurated  and  sustained  with  the  view 
of  securing  to  each  the  fruits  of  his  labor  while  at 
the  same  time  increasing  them  for  all — that  deliberate 
co-operation  which  consists  in  consciously  living,  let- 
ting live  and  helping  to  live. 

It  is  this  co-operation  which  constitutes  the  most 
essential  difference  between  the  animal  and  the  hu- 
man. Only  animalism  can  exist  and  flourish  on  a 
competitive  basis,  yet  this  is  the  basis  upon  which 
men  who  falsely  claim  to  be  humans  are  living. 

Until  mankind  begins  the  construction  of  a  civiliza- 
tion on  a  foundation  of  co-operation  in  the  production 
and  distribution  of  the  necessities  of  life,  it  should  not 
set  up  a  claim  to  humanism  for  itself,  because  mean- 
time it  cannot  sustain  such  a  claim. 

It  is  perfectly  natural  and  absolutely  necessary  for 
dogs  to  have  belligerent  contentions  for  bones,  be- 
cause they  cannot  peacefully  co-operate  in  the  making 
of  them,  and  yet  men  who  can  do  this  are  more  fierce 
by  far  in  their  competitive  struggles  for  the  bones 
which  are  necessities  to  their  lives. 


42         COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Revolutionary  socialists  of  the  Marxian  or  Bolshe- 
vijkian  type  offer  the  only  solution  of  the  two  great 
questions  of  the  world  at  this  time:  (1)  how  to  save 
it  from  its  intermittent  and  lesser  hell  of  suffering  by 
the  bloody  wars  between  rival  sets  of  capitalists,  and 
'(2)  how  to  save  it  from  its  perpetual  and  greater  hell 
of  suffering  by  the  bloodless  wars  between  the  ma- 
chine owning  masters  and  the  machine  operating 
slaves,  which  wars,  if  less  excruciating,  are  yet  more 
destructive  of  both  life  and  happiness. 

1.  As  to  the  bloody  wars,  a  league  of  nations  could 
prevent  them  only  while  the  dogs  are  sleeping  off 
their  exhaustion. 

Nor  could  government  ownership  under  capitalism 
be  depended  upon  for  protection.  It  would  increase 
the  armies  and  navies,  making  it  next  to  impossible 
that  more  than  a  decade  or  two  should  pass  before  our 
children  must  suffer  as  much  as,  or  more  than,  we 
have  by  the  recent  war  between  the  bull  dog  and  the 
blood  hound. 

We  are  not  at  all  indebted  to  the  victory  of  the  bull 
dog  (England)  over  the  blood  hound  (Germany)  for 
what  we  have  in  the  way  of  a  guarantee  against  fu- 
ture wars,  but  wholly  to  the  presumption  of  the  New- 
foundland dog  (Russia)  which  has  quietly  walked  off 
with  the  bone  of  contention  while  the  belligerents  were 
scrapping  over  it. 

Notwithstanding  all  appearances  and  impressions 
to  the  contrary,  this  bone  never  was  really  Paris  or 
Berlin,  but  first  one  and  then  another  country — the 
Balkan  States,  Mexico,  Persia,  Morocco  and  Russia. 

Russia  has  been  the  chief  bone  of  contention. 
Hence,  all  the  snarling  against  Russian  Bolshevism, 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  43 

one  of  a  large  litter  of  puppies  bom  to  the  Newfound- 
land since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  representatives  of 
which  have  already  made  their  way  to  many  coun- 
tries, and  the  prospects  are  that  they  or  their  oflF- 
spring  will  soon  be  in  evidence  everywhere  through- 
out the  world. 

When  all  these  Bolsheviki  are  grown-ups,  they  will 
make  the  world  safe  for  democracy  sure  enough — not 
the  competitive  democracy  of  the  bull  dogs  and  blood 
hounds,  but  the  co-operative  democracy  of  the  New- 
foundland dog.  Then,  and  not  before,  will  the  world 
be  safe  against  war. 

Since  the  armistice  there  has  been,  now  and  then, 
a  widespread  fear  that  the  Soviet  Republic  might 
not  be  permanent,  because  of  a  successful  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  bull  dog  to  put  over  another  war  on  ac- 
count of  the  Russian  bone ;  but  for  many  this  fear  has 
been  almost  quieted  by  the  total  collapse  of  the 
Kolchak,  Denikin,  Yudenich  and  Wrangel  uprisings 
from  within,  which  were  strongly  supported  by  the 
Allies;  and  by  the  repulsion  of  the  Polish  invasion 
which  had  England  and  France  behind  it. 

An  astonishing  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  Marx- 
ian theory  concerning  the  materialistic  or  economic 
determination  of  history,  is  furnished  by  the  melan- 
choly fact  that  the  representatives  of  big  business  in 
the  allied  countries  would  gladly  have  responded  to 
Gen.  Ludendorff's  call  to  join  the  junkers  of  Germany 
against  whom  they  so  recently  fought,  in  a  war 
against  Russia.  A  concerted  effort  was  made  to 
organize  such  a  war,  but  the  wisdom  learned  in  the 
school  of  the  world  war  by  the  working-men  of  all  the 


44         COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

countries  to  which  the  call  was  made  and  their  con- 
sequent opposition  to  the  effort  caused  it  to  fail. 

8.  But  great  as  the  suffering  of  the  world  is  on  ac- 
count of  the  bloody  wars  of  capitalists  with  each 
other,  it  is  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket  of  sorrow  as  com- 
pared with  its  suffering  on  account  of  the  bloodless 
wars  between  masters  and  slaves — between  the  ma- 
chine owners  and  operators.  When  this  bloodless  war 
ceases,  as  it  will  with  the  triumph  of  international 
communism,  the  bloody  wars  will  cease  and  not  until 
theii^ 

Under  the  capitalist  system  every  institution  (state, 
church,  school,  legislature,  court,  business,  yes,  even 
charity)  is  necessarily  a  robbing  instrumentality  by 
which  a  small  class  of  non-producers,  fat  masters,  rob 
a  large  class  of  producers,  lean  slaves,  and  rob  them 
twice,  each  time  thrice: 

1.  The  master  non-producers  rob  the' slave  produc- 
ers of  the  three  great  necessities  of  physical  (body) 
life — food,  clothing  and  houses. 

Even  in  the  United  States  of  America,  "the  land  of 
plenty,"  at  this  time  and  at  all  times,  seventy-five  out 
of  every  one  hundred  are  insufficiently  fed,  clothed  and 
housed, 

2.  The  master  non-producers  rob  the  slave  produc- 
ers of  the  necessities  of  psychical  (soul)  life — the  lib- 
erty to  learn  the  facts  of  nature,  the  liberty  to  humanly 
interpret  and  live  them  and  the  liberty  to  teach  their 
discoveries  and  interpretations. 

Even  in  the  United  States  of  America,  "the  home 
of  political  and  religious  freedom,"  there  is  not  one 
who  ckn  learn,  live  and  teach  the  truth  without  dan- 
ger of  being  put  out  of  a  synagogue  and  into  a  peni- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  45 

tentiary;  and  this  will  continue  until  imperialistic 
capitalism  and  supernaturalistic  Christianism,  the 
father  and  mother  of  the  whole  brood  of  robbers, 
liars,  persecutors  and  warriors,  have  been  dethroned. 

The  gods  of  the  capitalistic  interpretations  of  poli- 
tics, and  the  gods  of  the  supernaturalistic  interpreta- 
tions of  religion,  symbolize  the  same  reality,  parasitic 
robbery. 

Yet  within  the  religious  realm  the  trouble  is  not 
with  the  Jehovahs  any  more  than  within  the  political 
realm  it  is  with  the  Sams,  but  only  with  what  they 
symbolize. 

For  one,  I  should  feel  that  both  the  religious  and 
political  realms,  which  are  but  halves  of  the  same 
realm  —  religion  the  ideal,  and  politics  the  prac- 
tical half— would  be  poorer  without  their  respective 
Jehovahs  and  Sams,  even  as  the  realm  of  childhood 
would  be  poorer  without  its  Santa  Claus. 

If  symbols  are  not  absolute  necessities  to  the  re- 
ligious and  political  realms,  nevertheless  they  always 
have  been,  now  are  and  probably  ever  shall  be  orna- 
ments of  them;  I  hope  for  their  continuance,  but  as 
poetic  fictions,  not  as  prosaic  realities. 

All  the  imperialistic  interpretations  of  politics  and 
all  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations  of  religion 
must  be  overthown,  else  the  world  will  be  lost.  The 
omnipotent,  omnipresent  saviour  who  can  and  will 
deliver  us  from  them  is  already  in  the  world.  His 
name  is  International  Communism,  the  greatest  and 
holiest  name  which  has  ever  been  framed  and  pro- 
nounced ;  and  the  gospel  of  this  saviour  as  it  is  trans- 
lated by  Thomas  Carlyle  is  written  on  every  wall  so 
that  it  may  be  read  by  all : 


46        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Understand  that  well,  it  is  the  deep  commandment, 
dimmer  or  clearer,  of  our  whole  being,  to  be  freed.  Free- 
dom is  the  one  purpose,  wisely  aimed  at,  or  unwisely, 
of  all  man's  struggles,  toilings,  and  sufferings,  on  this 
earth. 

Morality  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world  because 
without  it  human  life  would  not  be  worth  the  living, 
or  even  possible;  but,  paradoxical  as  the  assertion 
may  seem,  freedom  or  liberty  is  greater  because  with- 
out it  morality  would  be  an  impossibility. 

One  can  attain  to  the  very  highest  standard  of 
morality,  religion  and  sainthood  without  the  least 
necessity  of  the  slightest  reference  to  what  the  gods 
of  the  supernaturalistic  religions  said  or  did,  and  this 
is  quite  as  true  of  Jesus  as  of  any  other  among  such 
gods,  but  no  man  can  reach  even  the  lowest  standard 
of  morality,  and  so  of  course  not  of  religion  or  saint- 
hood, without  constant  reference  to  the  god  of  truth. 

Yet  there  is  a  difference  between  a  law  and  a  truth. 
The  law  is  a  doing  or  act  of  nature,  and  as  such  it  is 
a  fact  or  revelation.  There  are  no  other  facts  or  reve- 
lations. 

According  to  the  traditional  superstitious  concep- 
tion, a  truth  is  the  revelation  of  the  will  of  a  god,  in- 
volving a  service  to  be  rendered  directly  or  indirectly 
to  him,  and  morality  consists  in  a  fulfillment  of  it. 

According  to  the  modern  scientific  conception,  a 
truth  is  the  interpretation  of  a  fact  involving  a  service 
to  be  rendered  to  men.  On  the  scientific  theory  each 
man  must  have  what  truth  he  has,  either  by  his  own 
interpretation  or  by  the  adoption  for  himself  of  an- 
other's interpretation. 

No  man  can  live  the  moral  part  of  his  psychical 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  47 

(soul)  life  on  the  truth  of  another  any  more  than  he 
can  live  his  physical  (body)  life  on  the  meals  of  an- 
other. Every  one  must  have  his  own  truths,  even  as 
he  must  have  his  own  meals. 

Hence  the  necessity  of  freedom  to  morality.  Hence, 
too,  the  impossibility  of  the  moral  life  under  restraint, 
such  as  is  imposed  by  orthodox  churches  in  their  offi- 
cial dogmas,  and  such  as  is  imposed  by  belligerent 
states  in  their  espionage  laws. 

Capitalism  is  essentially  competitive  and,  therefore, 
necessarily  belligerent  in  character :  hence  a  com- 
plete, an  ideal  moral  life  is  an  utter  impossibility  under 
it,  but  even  the  little  of  moral  life  which  otherwise 
might  be  possible  is  lessened  to  one-half  by  official 
dogmas  and  espionage  laws ;  if,  then,  the  governments 
of  churches  and  nations  have  any  regard  for  the  mor- 
ality of  their  memberships  and  citizenships  they  will 
at  once  repeal  them,  and  never  enact  others. 

The  democracy  which  means  freedom  to  learn  the 
laws  of  the  physical  realm  of  nature  and  to  interpret 
them  into  laws  for  the  regulation  of  human  life  (a 
democracy  which  will  secure  to  each  one  the  longest 
and  happiest  life  which,  under  the  most  favorable  of 
conditions,  would  be  within  the  range  of  possibilities 
for  him)  must  wait  until  the  competitive  system  of 
capitalism  for  the  production  and  distribution  of  the 
necessities  has  been  universally  and  completely  sup- 
planted by  the  co-operative  system  of  socialism. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  as  it  is  well 
put  by  an  able  contributor  to  the  excellent  Proletarian, 
is  this:  • 

What  is  needed  is  a  complete  revolution  of  the  eco- 
nomic system.   Private  ownership  of  the  tools  of  wealth 


48        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

production  stands  in  the  way  of  further  peaceful  social 
development  and  private  ownership  must  be  eliminated. 
Ihe  capitahsts  themselves  will  not  eliminate  it.  That 
IS  certam.  It  remains  for  the  working  class  to  do  so 
In  order  to  accomplish  this  task  it  will  be  necessary  for 
the  workers  to  take  control  of  the  institution  by  which 
the  capitalists  maintain  their  ownership  of  the  tools  of 
production— the  political  state.  That  is  the  historic  mis- 
sion of  the  working  class.  The  mission  of  the  Socialist 
is  to  organize  and  train  the  workers  for  this  "conquest 
of  political  power." 

Among  the  signs  of  the  times  which  unmistakably 
point  to  the  great  day  of  the  happy  consummation  of 
the  movement  towards  the  proletarian  revolution,  and 
the  glorious  sky  is  full  of  them,  is  the  fact  that  the 
world  has  recently  learned  from  the  great  war  that 
man  must  work  out  his  own  salvation  without  the 
least  help  from  the  gods  of  the  supernaturalistic  in- 
terpretations of  religion : 

And  that  inverted  Bowl  they  call  the  Sky, 
Whereunder  crawling  coop'd  we  live  and  die 
Lift  not  your  hands  to  It  for  help— for  It 
As  impotently  moves  as  you  or  I. 

— Omar. 

Yes,  and  a  god  moves  more  impotently  than  a  man  ; 
for,  whereas  the  god  is  driven  hither  and  thither  by 
the  laws  of  matter  and  force,  according  to  which  they 
co-exist  and  co-operate  through  evolutionary  processes 
to  the  making  of  the  universe  what  it  is,  and  the  god 
cannot  help  himself  by  making  it  or  conditioning  him- 
self otherwise,  the  man,  if  only  he  will  learn  those 
laws,  may  combine,  guide  and  ride  them  to  almost  any 
predetermined  destination,  even  out  of  the  class  hell 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  49 

of  competitive  capitalism  to  the  classless  heaven  of 
communism  or  co-operative  socialism. 

III.   ' 

The  salvation  of  the  world  from  its  unnecessary 
sufferings  is  dependent  upon  such  an  equitable  sharing 
of  the  labor  involved  in  the  making  and  operating  of 
the  machines  of  production  and  distribution,  and  upon 
such  an  equitable  sharing  of  the  products  as  shall  issue 
in  a  classless  mankind  by  doing  away,  through  a  rev- 
olution, with  the  class  which  lives  by  owning  the 
means  and  machines  of  production  and  distribution. 

It  is  this  advocacy  of  classless  levelism  which  con- 
stitutes the  theoretical  core  of  revolutionary  socialism. 
Those  who  oppose  this  socialism  proceed  upon  the 
assumption  of  the  permanency  of  e:(isting  religious 
and  political  institutions,  the  most  ruinous  of  all 
heresies. 

What  this  heresy  »is,  and  the  fatal  policy  to  which  it 
gives  rise,  has  its  classic  expression,  so  far  as  religion 
is  .concerned,  in  the  exhortation — "earnestly  contend 
for  the  faith  once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints" — and, 
so  far  as  politics  is  concerned,  in  the  representation — 
"the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  which  altereth 
not." 

There  is  no  such  faith  in  religion,  and  cannot  be, 
for  as  a  creed  becomes  stereotyped  it  loses  the  re- 
ligious character  and  degenerates  into  superstition. 

There  are  no  such  laws  in  politics,  and  cannot  be, 
for  as  a  law  becomes  stereotyped  it  loses  the  political 
character  and  degenerates  into  tyranny. 

Religion,  which  is  the  ideal  half,  and  politics,  which 


50        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

is  the  practical  half  of  the  same  reahty,  human  so- 
cialism, are  like  all  else  in  the  universe,  constantly 
changing-,  and  necessarily  so.  because  life  and  progress 
are  dependent  upon  change. 

Orthodoxy  in  religion  and  politics  is  the  blight  qf 
the  ages,  because  of  its  assumption  that  the  great  in- 
stitutions, the  family,  state  and  church  with  their  cus- 
toms, laws  and  doctrines,  as  they  exist  for  the  time 
being,  constitute  the  foundation  of  society,  without 
which  it  could  not  exist;  that  these  institutions  are 
almost  if  not  altogether  what  they  should  be,  and  that, 
therefore,  the  welfare  of  society,  if  not  indeed  its 
existence,  is  dependent  upon  their  continuance  with 
but  little  if  any  change. 

But  the  foundation  of  society  always  has  been  a 
system  for  the  production  and  distribution  of  the 
necessities  of  life,  and  hence  social  institutions,  cus- 
toms, laws  and  creeds  are  what  they  are  at  any  time 
because  an  economic  system  is  what  it  is. 

If  we  compare  an  economic  system  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  primary  necessities  of  life  (foods, 
clothes  and  houses)  to  a  king  or  bishop  (we  m^y 
well  do  so,  for  in  all  ages  such  systems  have  been 
the  power  behind  every  regal  and  episcopal  throne) 
we  shall  see  that  states,  with  their  rulers,  codes  and 
police,  armies  and  jails;  and  churches,  with  their  gods, 
revelations,  heavens  and  hells,  are  but  so  many  ex- 
pediencies for  the  protection  of  the  system  from 
change. 

What  is  true  in  this  respect  of  the  state  and  church 
is  equally  so  of  the  family,  the  school,  the  press,  the 
lodge,  the  club,  the  library,  the  theater,  the  chau- 
tauqua  and,  in  short,  every  institution. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  51 

Why  all  these  age-long  safeguards  against  change? 
Because,  so  far,  every  economic  system  has  divided 
society  into  two  classes,  a  comparatively  small  class 
who  own  things  and  a  large  one  who  make  things, 
and  if  the  few  honest  owners  are  to  hold  their  own 
as  divinely  favored  "grab-it-alls,"  they  must  be  pro- 
tected at  every  point  against  the  many  dishonest 
makers  who  are  diabolically  tempted  to  be  "keep- 
somes  !" 

These  rounded  out  children  of  god  have  nothing  in 
common  with  these  caved  in  imps  of  the  devil,  no 
more  than  the  flea  and  the  dog,  or  the  tapeworm  and 
the  man.  .,,. 

David  hastily  said:  All  men  are  lia>s.  He. might 
leisurely  have  said  this  of  every  representative  of  any 
religious  or  political  orthodoxy,  for  they  insist  that 
their  religion  and  politics  are  the  permanent  elements 
in  social  truth  which  remain  unchanged  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  through  all  ages,  whereas  no  re- 
ligion or  politics  continues  the  same  during  one 
decade,  nor  even  a  single  year. 

Orthodox  Christians  say  that  Jesus  founded  their 
sectarian  churches,  though  each  sect  insists  that  he 
had  to  do  with  only  one  church,  theirs.  I  doubt  that 
he  lived.  In  any  case,  I  am  certain  that  if  he  did 
live  and  founded  a  church  in  the  first  century  and 
were  to  come  to  earth  again  in  this  twentieth  cen- 
tury, he  could  not  if  he  would  and  would  not  if  he 
could  become  a  member  of  it,  because  of  its  changes. 

Our  own  country  is  different  by  the  width  of  the 
whole  space  of  the  heavens  from  what  it  was  before 
the  war,  and  it  is  destined  to  a  much  wider  change. 

So  far  are  churches  with  their  doctrines,  and  states 


52        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

with  their  laws  from  being  changeless,  that  they  are 
more  or  less  modified  by  every  development  in  the 
economic  system  to  which  they  owe  their  existence 
and  of  which  they  are  servants. 

In  the  case  of  every  nation,  its  king,  the  economic 
system,  has  always  been  a  robber  and  enslaver  of  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  people,  and  the  church 
and  state  have  been  the  hands  by  which  he  accom- 
plished the  robbing  and  enslaving. 

Insofar  as  they  differ,  Roman  orthodoxy  is  what 
it  is  because  of  its  starting  out  as  the  religious  product 
of  the  feudal  system  of  economics;  and  Protestant 
orthodoxy  is  what  it  is  because  of  its  starting  out  as 
the  religious  product  of  the  capitalistic  system  of 
economics.  n 

Protestantism  is  preferred  before  Romanism  by 
most  of  the  leading  people  in  the  financial  world,  be- 
cause it  is  the  child  of  capitalism,  their  sister,  so  to 
speak,  whereas  its  rival  is  only  a  cousin. 

As  to  the  Roman  and  Protestant  orthodoxies  they 
are  on  the  same  footing.  I  would  not  turn  my  hatid 
over  for  the  difference  between  them.  If  literally 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  modern  science,  both  are 
utterly  antiquated  and  irrational. 

Orthodox  Romanists  and  Protestants  have  essen- 
tially the  same  bible  and  creed.  In  my  opinion^ 
as  in  that  of  all  Marxian  communists  and  Darwinian 
scientists,  every  supernaturalistic  representation  in 
both  must  be  regarded  as  having  either  a  figurative  or 
a  superstitious  character,  for  there  is  not  one  among 
them  which  can  endure  a  scientific  and  rational 
analysis;  yet,  this  is  an  age  of  science  and  reason. 

The  difference  between  Romanism  and  Protestant- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  53 

ism  is  not  at  all  a  question  of  relative  supernatural- 
ism,  nor  of  rightness  and  wrongness,  but  wholly  one 
of  the  difference  between  the  systems  of  economics 
which  gave  them  birth. 

If  you  ask,  is  not  this  diflference  at  least  partly  a 
question  of  the  age  in  which  they  took  their  rise,  I 
reply,  yes;  bCit  the  age  itself  depends  upon  the  sys- 
tem. 

However,  it  is  a  fact  that  while  an  economic  sys- 
tem does  constitute  the  foundation  of  every  religious 
and  political  superstructure,  yet  below  the  foundation 
itself  there  is  always  a  bed  rock  upon  which  it  ulti- 
mately rests,  and  this  is  a  question  of  machinery  by 
which  the  necessities  of  life  are  produced  and  dis- 
tributed. 

The  age  of  feudalism  was  essentially  traditional  or 
theoretical  in  its  character. 

The  age  of  capitalism  is  essentially  scientific  or 
experimental  in  its  character. 

This  difference  between  these  ages  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  during  the  earlier  age  things  were  made  with 
hand  tools,  and  during  the  later  one  with  machine 
tools. 

Machinery,  in  a  theoretical  or  traditional  age, 
would  be  an  anachronism.  It  must  have  an  experi- 
mental or  scientific  age  for  its  development,  and. 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  this  the  machiher>'  -must 
make  for  itself.  Every  period  in  human  history  has 
had  its  determining  character  from  the  tools  which 
brought  it  into  being. 

Supernaturalism  has  no  place  in  the  observations, 
investigations  or  experimentations  which  are  neces- 
sary to  the  invention,  construction  and  operation  of 


54        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

a  great  machine  and,  hence,  the  machines  have 
banished  the  gods  from  the  roof  of  the  earth  and  the 
devils  from  its  cellar,  leaving  it  to  us  to  make  of  it 
what  we  please,  a  heaven  or  a  hell  without  reference 
to  them.  In  his  brilliant  work  entitled  "Social  and 
Philosophical  Studies,"  *  Paul  Lafargue  writes : 

The  labour  of  the  mechanical  factory  puts  the  wage- 
worker  in  touch  with  terrible  natural  forces  unknown 
to  the  peasant,  but  instead  of  being  mastered  by  them 
he  controls  them.  The  gigantic  mechanism  of  iron 
and  steel  which  fills  the  factory,  which  makes  him 
move  like  an  automaton,  which  sometimes  clutches  him, 
bruises  him,  mutilates  him,  does  not  engender  in  him  a 
superstitious  terror  as  the  thunder  does  in  the  peasant, 
but  leaves  him  unmoved,  for  he  knows  that  the  limbs 
of  the  mechanical  monster  were  fashioned  and  mounted 
by  his  comrades,  and  that  he  has  but  to  push  a  lever 
to  set  it  in  motion  or  stop  it.  The  machine,  in  spite  of 
its  miraculous  power  and  productiveness,  has  no  mystery 
for  him.  The  labourer  in  the  electrical  works,  who  has 
but  to  turn  a  crank  on  a  dial  to  send  miles  of  motive 
power  to  tramways,  or  light  the  lamps  of  a  city,  has  but 
to  say,  like  the  God  of  Genesis,  "let  there  be  light,"  and 
there  is  light.  Never  sorcery  more  fantastic  was  imag- 
ined, yet  for  him  this  sorcery  rs  a  simple  and  natural 
thing.  He  would*  be  greatly  surprised  if  one  were  to 
come  and  tell  him  that  a  certain  god  might,  if  he  chose, 
stop  the  machines  and  extinguish  the  lights  when  the  elec- 
tricity had  been  turned  on;  he  would  reply  that  this 
anarchistic  god  would  be  simply  a  misplaced  gearing  or 
a  broken  wire,  and  that  it  would  be  easy  for  him  to  seek 
and  find  this  disturbing  god.  The  practice  of  the  mod- 
ern factory  teaches  scientific  determinism  to  the  wage- 
worker,  without  it  being  necessary  for  him  to  pass 
through  the  theoretic  study  of  the  sciences. 

Earth   must   be   a   hell   so   long   as   we   allow    the 


♦Translated  and  published  by  Charles  H.  Kerr  of  Chicago. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  55 

capitalist  system  to  continue  on  it  and  to  enslave  the 
vast  majority  of  its  inhabitants.  Marxian  socialism 
will  ring  out  the  old  era  with  its  hell  of  human  slavery 
and  ring  in  the  new  era  with  its  heaven  of  machine 
slavery. 

One  point  must  be  grasped  and  held  by  all  who 
would  understand  the  changes  which  take  place  with- 
in the  social  realm  and  it  is  this:  they  are  due  to  the 
differences  in  the  instrumentalities  or  machines  by 
which  the  necessities  of  life  are  produced. 

Man  has  risen  above  the  lower  animals  which  have 
common  ancestors  with  his  own,  because  of  the 
superiority  of  the  hand  by  which  he  does  things  to 
the  hands  by  which  they  do  things.  If  a  man's  body 
in  general  and  hand  in  particular  were  not  a  great 
improvement  over  the  bodies  and  hands  of  the  apes, 
his  mind  and  morality  would  differ  but  little  from 
theirs. 

The  superiority  of  the  civilization  of  this  age  over 
its  predecessors  is  a  question  of  the  instrumentalities 
by  which  the  efficiency  of  the  hand  is  increased. 

If  all  the  modern  machinery  were  taken  from  this 
generation  and  replaced  by  the  implements  of  the 
stone  age  the  civilization  of  the  next  generation  would 
begin  to  sink,  and  within  a  century  it  would  reach 
the  ancient  level. 

Strong  expression  is  given  to  the  great  truth  upon 
which  we  are  here  dwelling  by  the  Socialist  Party  of 
Great  Britain  in  its  noteworthy  Manifesto: 

Obviously,  in  order  that  there  may  be  ideas  and  hu- 
man history,  two  material  things  must  first  be  present : 
human  beings,  and  food  and  shelter  for  them.  And  the 
fundamental  fact  that  is  so  seldom  realized  is,  that  where, 


56        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

by  what  means,  and  how  much,  food  and  shelter  can  be 
obtained,  determines  if,  where,  and  how,  man  shall  live, 
and  the  forms  his  social  institutions  and  ideas  shall  take. 
The  fundamental  affirmation  of  socialist  or  com- 
munist philosophy,  in  the  words  of  Frederick  En- 
g:els,  is: 

In  every  historical  epoch  the  prevailing  mode  of  eco- 
nomic production  and  exchange,  and  the  social  organi- 
zation necessarily  following  from  it,  form  the  basis  upon 
which  is  built  up,  and  from  which  alone  can  be  explained, 
the  political  and  intellectual  history  of  that  epoch. 

This  materialist  concept  is  the  Socialist  key  to  his- 
tory. It  is  the  first  principle  of  a  science  of  society,  and, 
being  directly  antagonistic  to  all  religious  philosophy, 
it  is  destined  to  drive  this  "philosophy"  and  all  its  super- 
stitions from  their  last  ditch. 

Civilization  will  not  die  with  the  death  of  the 
capitalist  system  of  production,  any  more  than  it  did 
with  the  feudal  system.  It  improved  under  capitalism, 
because  of  the  improvement  in  the  machinery  of  pro- 
duction, and  it  is  destined  to  continue  its  progress 
so  long  as  new  and  better  machines  are  made  and 
this  will  be  to  the  end. 

Marxian  socialism  is  a  machine  optimism.  Under 
this  socialism  the  number  and  efficiency  of  machines 
w®uld  increase  more  rapidly  than  they  have  under 
feudalism  and  capitalism,  because  its  aim  will  be 
the  production  of  commodities  for  use  within  the 
shortest  time  by  the  least  exertion  at  the  slightest 
risk  of  injury. 

Up  to  the  point  of  over  production,  that  is,  of  glut- 
ting the  markets,  it  is  to  the  interest  of  capitalism  to 
encourage  improvements  in  machinery,  but  this  point 
has   alreadv  been   reached,  as  is   evident   from   what 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  57 

we  hear  at  increasingly  frequent  intervals  about  an 
over  production  of  commodities. 

What  machin'ery  we  now  have  renders  it  possible 
to  produce  more  commodities  than  can  be  sold  with- 
out employing  all  the  labor  power.  But  the  idle, 
starving  slave  is  a  danger  to  the  idle,  surfeiting  mas- 
ter. Hence,  under  capitalism  there  can  be  no  further 
development  of  machinery,  at  least  not  on  a  large 
scale. 

An  industrial  government  would  have  for  its  aim 
to  produce  enough  of  everything  for  all  with  the  least 
expenditure  of  energy  and  time. .  Hence,  the  greatest 
benefactors  and  heroes  under  communism  would  be 
the  inventors  of  labor-saving,  leisure-giving  machin- 
ery. 

We  hear  much  about  the  mental  superiority  of  the 
representatives  of  the  master  class  over  those  of  the 
slave  class,  but  there  is  little  or  no  truth  in  it. 

On  the  contrary,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  invention 
of  a  great  labor  saving,  rapid-producing  machine  is, 
upqn  the  whole,  the  greatest  triumph  of  the  human 
mind  and  that  nearly  all  among  such  machines  are 
invented,  made,  operated,  kept  in  order  and  improved 
by  the  laborer. 

Masters  may  be  more  cunning  than  slaves,  but 
cunningness  is  not  an  evidence  of  a  high  order  of 
intellectual  power.  Many  of  the  lower  animals  are 
quite  the  equals,  if  not  indeed  the  superiors,  of 
capitalists  in  this  quality,  but  no  animal  is  the  equal 
of  any  man,  not  to  speak  of  the  exceptionally  skilled 
laborer,  in  the  power  to  produce  efficient  machines 
for  the  production  and  distributioi^of  the  necessities 
of  life. 


58        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Romanism  began  its  career  as  a  child  of  the  feudal 
system  for  the  production  and  distribution  ot  com- 
modities for  the  profit  of  the  owners  of  the  land  and 
the  means  for  its  cultivation.  The  mission  to  which 
it  was  born  was  the  assistance  of  its  father,  feudalism, 
in  robbing  and  enslaving  the  workers  who  tilled  the 
soil,  and  never  did  a  servant  more  faithfully  or  effi- 
ciently perform  a  task  during  a  longer  period. 

Protestantism  began  its  career  as  a  child  of  the 
capitalistic  system  for  the  production  and  distribution 
of  commodities  for  the  profit  of  the  owners  of  the 
means  and  machines  for  their  manufacturing.  The 
mission  to  which  it  was  born  was  the  assistance  of 
its  father,  capitalism,  in  robbing  and  enslaving  the 
workers,  who  make  and  operate  the  machines,  and 
never  did  a  servant  more  faithfully  and  efficiently  per- 
form a  task  in  a  larger  or  more  fruitful  field. 

Hitherto,  all  systems  of  economics  have  had  the 
same  soul,  competition ;  and,  because  of  it,  every  one 
among  them  has  been  a  diabolical  trinity  of  which 
lying  is  the  father;  robbing  is  the  son,  who  proceeds 
from  the  father ;  and  murder  is  the  spirit,  who  pro- 
ceeds from  the  father  and  the  son. 

Labor,  "the  certain  man"  of  every  nation,  is  half 
dead  lying  in  the  ditch  by  the  wayside,  despoiled  and 
wounded,  the  victim  of  capitalism,  the  greatest  liar, 
robber  and  murderer  of  all  the  ages. 

The  church  is  the  archangel  or  prime  minister 
through  which  this  Beelzebub,  capitalism,  has  done 
most  of  his  lying,  though  within  the  last  hundred 
years  the  business  has  become  so  great  that  the  office 
of  coadjutor  to  this  archangel  was  created,  and  the 
press  appointed  to  it. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  59 

The  state  is  the  archangel  or  prime  minister  through 
which  this  prince  of  devils, "capitalism,  has  done  most 
of  his  robbing  and  killing,  though  the  church  has 
often  taken  a  helpful  hand  in  these  departments  of 
the  devil's  work,  the  great  work  of  converting  earth 
into  a  hell  for  the  working,  slave  class. 

Nearly  all  of  the  backwardness  of  the  world  and 
more  than  half  of  its  unnecessary  sufferings  have  been 
due  to  efforts  to  prevent  changes  in  religion  and 
politics.  Our  nation  is  passing  through  the  darkest 
period  of  its  history  because  of  such  efforts  on  the 
part  of  the  powers  which  be  in  the  state,  and  they 
are  supported  by  those  in  the  church. 

Speaking  of  the  change  with  which  we  are  here 
especially  concerned,  the  one  involved  in  the  sup- 
planting of  an  old  economic  system  by  a  new,  there 
have  been  several  revolutions  due  to  such  changes, 
and  another  is  inevitable  and  imminent. 

When  an  economic  system  fails,  as  the  capitalistic 
one  is  failing,  to  feed,  clothe  and  house  the  workers 
of  the  world  who  produce  all  foods,  clothes  and 
houses,  the  time  when  it  must  give  place  to  another 
is  manifestly  near  at  hand. 

Capitalism  is  failing  in  this,  the  only  legitimate 
mission  of  an  economic  system.  It  has,  indeed,  over- 
supplied  the  needs  of  about  one  in  ten,  but  in  doing 
this  it  has  shown  partiality,  for  the  remaining  nine 
are  left  more  or  less  foodless,  clotheless  and  house- 
less, and  this  notwithstanding  they  have  done  all  the 
feeding,  clothing  and  housing.  Those  favored  by  the 
system  will  not  be  able  to  prevent  its  overthrow  by 
those  who  are  wronged. 

With  our  materials,  factories,  railroads  and  skill 


60        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

all  should  have  enough  and  to  spare  of  every  neces- 
sity, but  so  far  is  this  from  being  the  case  that  millions 
are  insufficiently  fed,  clothed,  housed  and  warmed, 
and  are  doomed  to  a  perpetual  and  exhaustive 
drudgery  which  leaves  neither  leisure  nor  energy  for 
the  cultivation  of  their  soul  life. 

The  economical  and  statistical  experts  of  our 
government's  Department  of  Labor  represent  (1920) 
that  the  bare  necessities  of  a  comfortable  and  efficient 
life  for  a  family  of  five  require  an  annual  income  of 
$1,500,  and  that  the  simple  luxuries,  which  are  next 
to  being  indispensable,  require  an  additional  $1  000 
in  all  $3,500,  per  year. 

How  many  American  families  of  five  have  even  the 
smaller  of  these  sums  at  their  disposal?  The  over- 
whelming majority  have  less  than  $1,000.  Let  us  be 
honest  with  the  peoples  of  other  nations  by  ceasing 
to  speak  of  our  country  as  "the  land  of  plenty  and 
the  home  of  the  free,"  until  there  is  a  great  change 
for  the  better. 

Wage  slavery  may  be  prolonged  by  a  military 
coercion,  but  it  cannot  have  a  successor  in  any  other 
form  of  human  slavery.  Military  coercion  prolonged 
chattel  slavery,  and,  by  so  doing,  brought  wJiat  is 
known  as  the  dark  ages  upon  the  world.  If  wage 
slavery  is  to  be  prolonged  by  military  coercion  the 
world  must  pass  through  a  second  dark  age.  The 
imperialists  are  scheming  for  this;  but  let  us  hope 
that  this  coalition  will  not  stand  and  that  wage 
slavery  will  soon  be  followed  by  machine  slavery,  the 
form  of  slavery  which  will  end  human  slavery;  not 
until  then  shall  we  have  peace  on  earth  and  good  will 
among  men. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  ^! 

Then  they  shall  beat  their  swords  into  plowshares, 
and  their  spears  into  pruning  hooks:  nation  shall  not 
lift  up  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn 
war  any  more. 

bo  you  not  now  see  with  me  that  the  christ  of  the 
world  is  not  a  conscious,  personal  god,  but  an  un- 
conscious, impersonal  machine?  It  is  to  the  machine 
of  man,  not  a  lamb  of  god,  to  which  we  may  hope- 
fully look  for  the  taking  away  of  the  sins  of  the 
world. 

Ignorance  is  the  great  misfortune  of  the  world,  its 
devil,  and  slavery  is  its  hell.  The  machine  is  the 
Redeemer  who  shall  save  man  from  this  devil  and 
'hell. 

Yes,  strange,  even  blasphemous,  as  the  represen- 
tation may  seem,  it  is  nevertheless  true,  the  machine 
is  the  only  name  given  under  heaven  whereby  the 
world  can  be  saved. 

Civilization  is  salvation.  The  civilization  which 
is  salvation  depends  on  leisure  and  it  on  slavery,  but 
so  long  as  leisure  is  dependent  upon  the  slavery  of 
man,  civilization  must  be  limited  to  a  diminishing 
few. 

Marxian  socialism  is  a  movement  towards  the 
equalization  and  universalization  of  leisure,  by  doing 
away  with  the  master  and  slave  classes,  through 
transference  of  slavery  from  man  to  machine. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  any  naturalistic  represen- 
tation about  the  dependence  of  morality  upon  a  sys- 
tem for  the  production  of  the  necessities  of  life,  there 
is  none  in  the  supernaturalistic  one,  which  makes  it 
dependent  on  any  among  the  gods;  and,  what  is  true 
of  the  realm  of  morality  is  equally  so  of  the  realm  of 


62        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

history,  and  this  whether  it  be  the  history  of  the 
universe  in  general  or  man  in  particular. 

Lavoisier  and  Mayer  showed  that  no  god  (Jesus, 
Jehovah,  Allah,  Bmidha)  created  the  universe  out  of 
nothing,  for  the  matter  and  force  which  enter  into  its 
constitution  are  eternalities  and  universalities. 

Kant  and  Laplace  showed  that  the  earth  and  the 
heavenly  bodies  were  not  created  by  any  god  at  all, 
but  evolved  from  gaseous  nebulae. 

Kepler  and  Newton  showed  that  these  bodies  were 
not  governed  in  their  motions  by  a  god  but  by  the 
law  of  gravitation. 

Darwin  and  Wallace  showed  that  the  species  of 
animal  and  vegetable  life  were  not  created  by  any 
among  the  gods,  but  evolved  from  a  common 
protoplasm. 

Marx  and  Engels  showed  that  man's  career  has  not 
been  determined  by  any  among  the  gods,  but  by  his 
systems  for  producing  and  distributing  the  necessities 
of  life. 

These  ten  men  are  the  greatest  teachers  the  world 
has  had,  and  this  is  the  sum  of  all  their  teachings: 
The  universe  is  self-existing,  self-sustaining  and  self- 
governing,  having  all  the  potentialities  of  its  own 
life  within  itself,  and  what  is  true  of  it  in  general  is 
equally  so  of  all  the  phenomena  which  enter  into  its 
constitution,  including  man;  wHo,  though  he  is  the 
highest  among  them,  is  only  a  phenomenon,  on  a 
level  with  all  the  rest,  not  excepting  the  lowest.  A 
microbe  and  a  man  are  on  the  same  footing,  both  as 
to  their  origin  and  destiny,  and  as  to  their  having 
within  themselves  all  the  power  which  is  available  for 
making  the  most  of  their  respective  lives. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  63 

We  are  part 

Of  every  rock  and  bird  and  beast  and  hill, 
One  with  the  things  that  prey  on  us, 
And  one  with  what  we  kill. 

— ^Anonymous. 

Darwinism  and  Marxism  constitute  one  gospel,  the 
only  true,  comprehensive  and  sufficient  gospel  which 
the  world  has  ever  had  or  can  have,  and  there  is  no 
hope  for  the  future  of  mankind  except  in  it.  If  it 
fails  the  world  is  lost,  but  it  shall  not  and  indeed  can- 
not fail,  for  its  words  are  so  many  acts  or  facts  of  na- 
ture. 

There  is  no  fact  which  is  not  such  an  act,  and  every 
such  fact  is  a  part  of  the  one  only  law  upon  the 
knowing  and  doing  of  which  terrestrial  life  and  its 
happiness  are  wholly  and  solely  dependent. 

Yes,  life,  long  life,  happy  life,  all  there  is  of  such 
human  life,  or  divine  life  (if  there  be  any)  depends 
entirely  upon  a  knowledge  of  and  conformity  to  this 
law  which  is  the  doing  of  nature  and  not  at  all  upon 
any  law  which  is  the  willing  of  a  god,  if  indeed  there 
is  such  a  law. 

Neither  the  religion  nor  the  politics  which  enters 
into  the  constitution  of  Marxian  or  proletarian 
socialism  is  at  all  concerned  about  the  heaven  above 
or  the  hell  below  the  earth,  if  there  are  such  places: 
but  the  concern  of  both  is  wholly  to  ring  out  a  hell 
from  the  earth  and  to  ring  in  a  heaven  upon  it. 

Nor  have  the  religion  and  jx)litics  which  constitute 
this  socialism  the  least  concern  about  the  service  of 
a  celestial  divinity  (Jesus,  Jehovah,  Allah,  Buddha  or 
any  other)  by  doing  his  will ;  but  both  are  much  con- 
cerned with  the  service  of  humanity,  which  consists 


64        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

in  rightly  learning,  inte^rpreting  and  using  the  laws 
of  nature,  wholly  for  the  purpose  of  making  the 
terrestrial  lives  of  men,  women  and  children  as  long 
and  happy  as  possible,  and  with  absolutely  no  refer- 
ence to  any  celestial  life  which  may  be  either  above 
or  below  the  earth. 

Religion  and  politics  are  the  complementary  and 
inseparable  halves  of  the  social  sphere,  religion  being 
its  idealism  and  politics  its  practicalism. 

Religious  idealism  is  the  feminine  social  soul  of 
which  the  church  should  be  the  embodiment. 

Political  practicalism  is  the  masculine  social  soul  of 
which  the  state  should  be  the  embodiment. 

Contrary  to  the  representations  of  orthodox 
Christianism  it  is  impossible  for  any  soul  to  exist 
without  an  embodiment. 

In  truth  the  body  produces  the  soul,  not  the  soul 
the  body.  We  must  have  the  church  and  state  in 
order  that  we  may  have  their  souls,  idealism  and 
practicalism,  the  father  and  mother  of  civilization. 

Why,  if  the  Soul  can  fling  the  Dust  aside 

And  naked  on  the  Air  of  Heaven  ride, 

Were't  not  a  Shame — were't  not  a  Shame  for  him 

In  this  clay  carcass  crippled  to  abide? 

— Omar. 

IV. 

The  church  and  the  state  are  on  the  same  level  as 
to  their  origin  and  importance.  Both  are  human  in- 
stitutions and  each  is  indispensable  to  the  other.  It 
is  not  at  all  desirable,  or  possible,  to  rid  the  world  of 
either,  but  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  both  should 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  65 

be  revolutionized,  the  church  by  having  its  bible  and 
creed  re-written  or  at  least  reinterpreted,  on  the  basis 
of  truth  as  it  is  revealed  by  nature,  and  the  state  by 
having  its  institutions  revolutionized  or  at  least  re- 
organized on  the  basis  of  service  to  all  instead  of  only 
to  those  of  a  small  class,  the  owner  or  master  class. 

All  the  idealistic  aims  of  churches  and  all  the 
practical  undertakings  of  states  should  be  directly 
concerned  with  the  answer  to  three  questions:  (1) 
the  question  as  to  how  to  reach  the  goal  where  ter- 
restrial life  shall  in  the  case  of  each  man,  woman  and 
child  be  as  long  and  happy  as  it  is  within  the  range 
of  possibilities  to  make  it,  by  the  fullest  of  attainable 
knowledge  concerning  the  laws  of  nature;  (2)  the 
question  as  to  how  to  make  the  most  successful  en- 
deavor universally  to  disseminate  such  knowledge, 
and  (3)  the  question  as  to  how  resistlessly  to  per- 
suade to  the  living  of  it. 

These  are  the  only  concerns  and  aims  of  Marxian 
socialism  and  they  cannot  be  promoted  or  even  avow- 
ed by  Christian  socialists. 

The  great  crime  of  the  ages  is  the  robbing  of  the 
producer  of  the  basic  necessities  of  human  life  by  the 
non-producer. 

Capitalism  is  the  robber,  and  the  politics  and  reli- 
gion of  the  old  states  and  churches  are  the  right  and 
left  hands  by  which  be  has  been  and  is  doing  the 
robbing. 

Marxian  socialism  is  an  undertaking  which  has  for 
its  task  the  overthrow  of  the  system  which  makes  it 
possible  for  those  who  produce  nothing  to  live  sur- 
feitingly,  and  renders  it  necessary  for  those  who 
produce  everything  to  live  starvingly. 


66         COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Poverty  is  a  disease  caused  by  the  unjust  wage 
system  of  competitive  capitalism  for  producing  and 
distributing  the  necessities  of  life  (food,  clothing  and 
shelter)  for  the  profit  of  capitalists,  the  few  who  live 
by  owning  the  materials  and  machines  of  production 
and  distribution ;  and  this  blighting  malady  cannot  be 
cured  by  charity,  but  it  will  spread  until  this  system 
is  supplanted  by  the  just  one  of  co-operative  indus- 
trialism, a  system  by  which  these  necessities  shall 
be  produced  and  distributed  for  the  use  of  laborers, 
those  w^ho  live  by  making  and  operating  machines. 

Every  gift  to  charity  by  a  rich  man  is  a  robbery  of 
a  poor  man.  You  will  not  see  this  at  once,  if  ever, 
and  I  shall  not  blame  you  for  the  failure  to  do  so.  It 
was  not  seen  by  me  until  I  was  older  than  you;  but- 
I  am  now  seeing  it  as  clearly  as  I  ever  saw  the  sun 
on  a  cloudless  noonday,  and  this  is  true  of  rapidly 
growing  millions  who  are  resolutely  resolved  to  do 
away  with  the  prevailing  conception  of  charity,  ac- 
cording to  which  capitalists  may  rob  laborers  of  the 
fruit  of  their  toil,  giving  them  of  it  barely  enough  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together  and  to  raise  up  children 
who  are  doomed  to  follow  in  their  footsteps.;  and 
then,  when  the  strength  of  their  victim  fails,  to  make 
amends  for  the  robberies,  by  giving  the  most  highly 
favored  among  them  beds  in  hospitals  or  in  poor- 
houses  in  which  to  die  prematurely,  and  nameless 
graves  in  potter's  fields  in  which  to  await  hopefully 
a  resurrection  and  ascension  to  an  inheritance  of  hap- 
piness in  a  sky,  which  was  denied  them  on  the  earth. 

The  time  is  at  hand  when  everywhere  the  unem- 
ployed and  the  underpaid  shall  begin  a  resistless 
march  towards  the  goal  of  economic  levelism  under  a 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  67 

banner  containing  this  slogan:  We  want  no  charity 
but  the  right  to  work  and  the  fruits  of  our  labors  that 
we  and  our  helpless  dependents  may  have  every  ne- 
cessity to  the  fullest  life  for  body  and  soul. 

During  more  than  a  whole  generation  Mrs.  Brown 
and  I  have  'not  produced  a  spoonful  of  any  food, 
a  thread  of  any  garment  or  a  shingle  of  any  house; 
and  yet  we  have  had  foods,  garments  and  houses  in 
abundance,  with  some  to  spare,  while  their  producers 
have  had  them  in  scarcity  with  much  to  want. 

While  the  world  war  was  on,  an  ill  wind  for  the 
producers  blew  a  thousand  dollars  to  us  and  an  ill 
wind  for  us  blew  it  into  the  hands  of  a  committee, 
ostensibly  for  investment  on  behalf  of  a  hospital  of 
which  we  approved,  but  really  for  the  purchase  of  a 
bond  in  the  interest  of  a  war  of  which  we  disap- 
proved. 

The  fathers  of  the  present  generation  of  producers 
and  distributors  of  the  necessities  of  life  were  robbed 
in  order  that  we  might  inherit  the  property  from 
which  our  income  is  derived ;  their  sons  and  daughters 
are  being  robbed  over  and  over  again  and  again,  year 
after  year,  in  order  that  the  property  may  continue 
to  yield  this  income  to  us. 

We  therefore  paid  nothing  of  our  own  for  this 
bond.  What  we  gave  for  it  was  of  the  spoils  which 
the  great  robber,  capitalism,  has  bestowed  upon  us, 
its  favorite  children,  from  what  it  has  taken  from  its 
unfortunate  victims. 

The  same  persons  or  their  children  and  succes- 
sors were  or  shall  be  robbed  first  to  create  our  prop- 
erty, then  to  pay  the  income  of  it,  next  to  buy  the 
bond,  and  now  they  are  being  robbed  to  meet  the  in- 


68        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

terest  on  it  and  finally  they  will  be  robbed  to  pay  its 
face  value.  If  capitalism  stands,  of  course  the  vic- 
tims of  the  last  of  these  robberies  will  belong,  prob- 
ably, to  a  remote  generation ;  but  this  delay  is  a  mis- 
fortune in  store  for  many  of  all  intervening  genera- 
tions. 

If  the  robbery  connected  with  this  bond  were  limit- 
ed to  its  original  cost,  one  thousand  dollars,  and  to  its 
accruing  interest,  which  is  likely  in  time  to  aggre- 
gate several  thousand  dollars,  it  would  indeed  be  bad 
enough,  yet  not  nearly  as  much  so  as  it  is  under  the 
melancholy  circumstances;  for  the  money  paid  on 
account  of  the  bond  goes  towards  killing  or  wrecking 
its  producers,  if  not  those  who  produced  this  parti- 
cular thousand  dollars,  yet  others  of  their  class  to 
whom  the  world  owes  all  of  its  wealth ;  therefore  the 
thousand  dollars  which  went  into  this  bond  has  been 
devoted  to  the  robbery  of  those  who  were  robbed  of 
it  and  of  the  most  precious  of  all  things :  life  and  limb. 

You  will  ask;  how  can  you  and  Mrs.  Brown,  in  the 
face  of  your  theory,  according  to  which  all  who  live 
by  owning  are  robbers  of  those  who  live  by  working, 
consistently  receive  and  expend  the  income  of  your 
inheritance? 

The  answer  was  given  to  a  friend  who  asked  us 
why  we  did  not  follow  the  heroic  example  of  a  young 
American  who  had  recently  renounced  what  had  been 
inherited  by  him,  and  this  is,  in  effect,  what  we  said: 

As  we  look  at  the  question,  our  course  is  more 
rational  than  his,  because  the  wealth  which  he  re- 
nounces may  go  to  some  one  who  is  without  his 
sympathy  for  the  proletariat.  We  prefer  to  receive 
our  inheritance  and  use  it  to  overthrow  the  economic 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  69 

system  which  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  do  nothing 
and  have  everything,  and  for  those  who  do  every- 
thing to  have  nothing. 

Capitalists,  as  such,  people  who  live  by  the  owning 
of  the  machines  of  production  and  distribution,  in- 
stead of  by  the  making  and  operating  of  them,  have 
much  to  say  against  the  alleged  anarchism  of  com- 
munists, but  they  are  necessarily  what  they  accuse 
anarchists  of  being,  robbers  and  murderers.  Every 
cent  of  profit,  interest  and  rent  is  so  much  robbing, 
and  all  wars  are  so  many  conflicts  between  the  capital- 
istic bandits  or  robbers  in -the  country  involved,  and 
the  peace  conferences,  which  follow  them,  are  so 
many  attempts  of  the  bandits  on  the  successful  side 
to  have  the  spoils  as  large  as  possible,  and  to  satisfac- 
torily divide  them. 

It  is  Holy  Week  1921.  The  week  in  which  dur- 
ing all  the  years  of  many  and  long  ages^  benighted 
people  sacrificed  their  christs  to  Shylock  gods.  If 
Jesus  lived  and  was  a  Christ,  unhappily  He  was  neith- 
er the  first  nor  the  last,  for  there  were  many  both  be- 
fore and  after  Him.  Were  they  who  superstitiously 
led  these  victims  to  their  Golgothas  greater  sinners 
against  humanity  than  those  who  did  avariciously 
during  the  war  drive  large  armies  of  young  men  to  the 
terrible  trenches,  a  wholesale  sacrifice  of  the  lords  of 
wealth  and  power  and  who  do  now  drive  the  vast 
majority  of  the  nations  involved  in  that  war  to  a  ter- 
rible body  and  soul  destroying  poverty  and  slavery? 
No.  The  modern  robbers  even  more  than  the  an- 
cient ones  are  in  need  of  the  prayer:  Forgive  them 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do. 
Communism  and  Christianism  have,  indeed,  this  in 


70        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

common,  that  their  object  is  to  promote  life,  long  life, 
and  happy  life,  both  lives  in  a  large  and  full  measure, 
pressed  down,  shaken  together  and  running  over. 

Yet,  with  this  sameness  in  the  gospels  of  Commun- 
ism and  Christianism  there  is  this  difference  in  the 
aims  of  the  christs  who  preached  them,  which  sep- 
arate them  as  widely  as  the  east  is  from  the  west, 
leaving  a  great  and  impassable  gulf  between  them. 

Marx,  the  christ  of  the  Communist  gospel,  said:  I 
am  come  that  the  world  might  have  terrestrial  life  for 
body,  mind  and  soul,  and  have  it  for  each  in  the 
fullest  of  possible  measures  by  co-operation  with  each 
other  in  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  nature,and  in 
making  them  serve  men,  women  and  children  by  se- 
curing for  them  food,  clothing,  shelter,  health  and 
comfort  for  the  body,  and  leisure  for  the  mind  to 
think  and  for  the  soul  to  grow. 

Jesus,  the  christ  of  the  Christian  gospel,  according 
to  orthodoxy,  said:  I  am  come  that  ye  might  have 
celestial  life  for  mind,  body  and  soul  and  have  it  for 
each  in  the  largest  and  fullest  possible  measure  by 
co-operation  in  persuading  each  other  in  particular 
and  the  world  in  general  to  receive  a  revelation  of 
the  will  of  a  conscious,  personal  God,  made  through 
prophets,  preserved  in  the  bible  and  interpreted  by 
the  church. 

With  me,  it  is  a  melancholy,  but  resistless  and 
deepening  conviction,  that,  if  orthodox  Christianism 
should  become  associated  with  Marxian  socialism,  as 
Kingsley  and  you  would  associate  them,  we  should 
soon  have  a  glaring  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this 
proverb :  no  man  can  serve  two  masters. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  71 

Moreover,  I  believe  that  if  Christian  socialism  were 
to  become  a  door  to  Marxian  socialism,  through  which 
orthodox  Christianism  could  enter  and  make  itself 
at  home,  the  revolutionary  aims  of  the  slave  class 
would  be  thwarted  and  the  world  would  enter  upon 
a  new  dark  age,  as  it  did  when  Constantine  was  con- 
verted td  Christianity  and  Christians  became  the 
most  loyal  citizens  and  valiant  soldiers  of  the  Empire. 

At  that  time  chattel  slavery  had  run  its  course  as 
wage  slavery  has  now;  and,  if  it  had  not  been  pro- 
longed by  a  military  despotism,  as  I  fear  this  may 
be,  the  world  would  have  had  something  of  the  feudal 
slavery,  but  nothing  of  the  dark  age.  This  age  was 
the  baneful  fruit  of  Christianism.  Christianity  has 
held  the  world  back  from  instead  of  advancing  it  to- 
wards civilization. 

The  Christianization  of  Marxian  communism,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  program  of  Kingsley  and  our 
Church  Socialist  League,  would  spell  another  military 
despotism  for  the  prolongation  of  a  second  system  of 
slavery,  which  has  run  its  course  and  is  in  a  fair  way 
of  being  overthrown;  but,  if  the  revolutionists  fail, 
as  the  result  of  being  trampled  under  the  iron  heel, 
we  are  at  the  threshold  of  a  second  dark  age  and  sh^l 
soon  be  passing  through  all  the  miseries  of  it. 

•My  interest  in  the  movement  within  our  church 
looking  towards  a  Christian  socialism  of  a  more  radi- 
cal and  revolutionary  type  would  be  great,  if  only 
I  could  feel  as  I  should  so  much  like,  that  the  Chris- 
tian socialism  to  which  you  have  consecrated  the 
whole  prime  of  your  life,  and  the  Marxian  socialism, 
t©  which  I  have  consecrated  all  of  the  little  that  re- 
mains  of   mine,   the   fag-end,   are   not   utter    incom- 


72        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

patibilities,  so  much  so  that  it  is  absolutely  impossi- 
ble that  they  can  co-exist  and  co-operate  to  any  good 
purpose. 

The  irreconcilable  incompatibility  of  Christian  so- 
cialism and  Marxian  socialism  is  due  to  the  fact  that, 
whereas  the  Christian  is  essentially  imperialistic  in 
its  character,  the  Marxian  is  as  essentially  democratic. 
The  reason  for  this  fundamental  and  ineradicable  dif- 
ference, and  the  consequent  incompatibleness,  is  the 
fact  that  orthodoxism,  whether  Christian,  Jewish, 
Mohammedan  or  Buddhistic,  is  nothing  unless  it  is  su- 
pernaturalistic  and  traditional ;  and  Marxism  is  noth- 
ing unless  it  is  naturalistic  and  scientific,  as  much  so 
as  is  Darwinism. 

In  order  that  you  may  see  the  reason,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  for  this  wide,  deep  and  bridgeless  difference, 
I  draw  the  following  contrasts  between  the  essential 
beliefs  of  Marxian  socialists  and  orthodox  Christians : 

1.  Marxian  socialism  or  communism  is  essen- 
tially naturalistic.  Orthodox  Christianism  is  essen- 
tially supernaturalistic.  The  consistent  socialist  says : 
I  have  all  the  potentialities  of  my  own  life  within  my- 
self. The  consistent  Christian  says:  My  strength  is 
fi^m  God. 

2.  Marxian  socialism  is  essentially  classless. 
Orthodox  Christianism  is  essentially  a  class  system 
by  which  the  world  is  divided  into  two  classes,  saints 
and  sinners.  The  consistent  socialist  says :  Every  man 
is  my  brother.  The  consistent  Christian  (like  the 
theist  of  every  name — ^Jew,  Mohammedan,  Buddhist 
and  the  rest)  says :  Every  true  believer  is  my  brother, 
but  those  who  are  not  are  only  potential  brethren. 

3.  Marxian     socialism    is    essentially     terrestrial. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  73 

Orthodox  Christianism  is  essentially  celestial.  The 
consistent  socialist  says :  Earth  is  my  home.  The  con- 
sistent Christian  says :  Heaven  is  my  home. 

4.  Marxian  socialism  is  essentially  materialistic. 
Orthodox  Christianism  is  essentially  spiritualistic. 
The  consistent  socialist  says :  The  basic  necessities  of 
life,  and  therefore  its  first  concerns,  are  foods,  rai- 
ments, shelters,  comfort  and  leisure.  The  consistent 
Christian  says:  Take  no  primary  thought  for  these, 
but  only  for  faith  in  and  obedience  to  God,  regarding 
all  else  of  secondary  importance. 

5.  Marxian  socialism  is  essentially  proletarian. 
Orthodox  Christianism  is  essentially  bourgeois.  The 
consistent  socialist  says :  I  am,  by  reason  of  my  ante- 
cedents, a  man,  a  woman,  a  child  of  nature  on  an  es- 
sential level  as  to  my  origin  and  destiny  with  every 
other  representative  of  humanity  and  indeed  ani- 
mality.  The  consistent  Christian,  like  the  theist  of 
every  name,  says:  I  am  (by  reason  of  my  faith,  bap- 
tism or  conversion)  a  prince  or  princess,  the  son  or 
daughter  of  a  king,  God. 

6.  Marxian  socialism  is  essentially  democratic. 
Orthodox  Christianism  is  essentially  imperialistic. 
The  consistent  socialist  says :  I  live  with  reference  to 
the  will  of  the  majority.  The  consistent  Christian 
says:  I  live  with  reference  to  the  will  of  a  God. 

7.  Marxian  socialism  is  essentially  pacific*  Ortho- 

♦This  shall  be  true  of  Marxian  socialism  when  it  is  tri- 
umphant, but  it  will  not  be  so  while  it  is  persecuted.  Socialist 
Russia  has  asked  for  peace  after  every  war  which  the  capitalist 
nations  (England,  France,  Italy  and  America)  have  waged 
against  her,  not  because  she  could  no  longer  defend  herself, 
but  for  the  reason  that  her  socialism,  being  co-operative  in  its 
character,  necessarily  imposes  humaneness;  yet  they  could  not 
grant  it,  because  their  capitalism,  being  competitive  in  its  char- 


74        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

dox  Christianism  is  essentially  belligerent  The  con- 
sistent socialist  says:  Since  you  are  a  man,  I  co- 
operate with  you.  The  consistent  Christian  says: 
Since  you  are  not  a  believer,  I  contend  with  you. 

8.  Marxian  socialism  is  essentially  non-sectarian. 
The  consistent  socialist  says:  All  the  world  is  my 
home  and  the  desire  and  effort  to  render  service  to 
men,  women  and  children  is  my  religion.  The  con- 
sistent Christian  says :  Only  Christendom  is  my  home 
and  the  desire  and  effort  to  serve  a  God  is  my  religion. 

9.  Marxian  socialism  is,  as  to  the  source  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  means  of  attaining  it,  essentially  scien- 
tific. Orthodox  Christianism  is  essentially  traditional. 
The  consistent  socialist  says:  The  salvation  of  the 
world  is  dependent  upon  what  is  learned  by  natural 
experience,  observation  and  investigation  about  the 
doing  of  a  matter-force-law  nature.  The  consistent 
Christian  says:  This  salvation  depends  upon  what  is 
learned  by  revelation,  tradition  and  inspiration  about 
the  willings  of  a  father-son-spirit  God. 

10.  Marxian  socialism  explains  the  history  of  man- 
kind on  the  naturalistic  theory  that  it  has  been  de- 
termined during  every  period  by  the  existing  system 
for  supplying  the  materialistic  necessities  of  life. 
Orthodox  Christianism  explains  this  history  on  the 
supernaturalistic  theory  that  it  is  determined  by  the 
providential  directions  of  a  triune  divinity.   The  con- 

acter,  as  necessarily  imposes  inhumaneness.  The  hand  of  the 
capitalist  world  is  aggressively  against  socialist  Russia,  and  must 
be,  because  the  life  of  capitalism  depends  upon  her  death ;  and 
her  hand  is  defensively  against  all  the  capitalist  nations.  Capi- 
talism and  socialism  cannot  occupy  the  earth  together.  Either 
the  one  or  the  other  must  have  all  of  it.  Mankind  in  general 
is  illustrating  the  truth  of  the  proverb  which  has  been  illustrated 
by  so  many  families  in  particular — a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand. — W.  M.  B. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  75; 

sistent  socialist  says :  If  you  will  tell  me  of  the  eco- 
nomic system  by  which  a  people  have  fed,  clothed 
and  housed  themselves,  I  will  tell  you,  at  least  in 
general  outline,  what  has  been  their  history.  The 
consistent  Christian  says:  If  you  will  tell  me  what 
the  providences  of  my  God  have  been  towards  a  peo- 
ple, I  will  tell  you  their  history. 

11.  Marxian  socialism  has  inscribed  on  one  of  its 
banners:  Liberty.  Orthodox  Christianism  has  this 
inscription  on  its  corresponding  banner:  Obedience. 
The  consistent  socialist  says :  This  Liberty-banner  is 
the  symbol  of  my  freedom  as  a  son  of  man  to  be 
progressively  learning,  living  and  teaching  the  un- 
folding revelations  of  nature — to  know  and  to  live: 
which  is  to  have  life,  terrestrial  life  in  an  ever  in- 
creasing measure,  all  the  life  there  is  here  and  now 
or  elsewhere  and  elsewhen,  if  there  is  to  be  j  con- 
scious, personal  life  anywhere  or  anywhen  else.  The 
consistent  Christian  says:  This  Obedience-banner  is 
a  symbol  of  my  slavery  as  a  son  of  God  by  which  I 
am  bound  to  receive,  live  and  teach  the  faith  once  for 
all  delivered  to  the  saints  in  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments, or  else  lose  the  permanent  life  in  the  sky  which 
is  to  follow  this  temporary  one  on  the  earth. 

12.  Marxian  socialism  has  inscribed  on  another  of 
its  banners :  Justice  to  Man.  Orthodox  Christianism 
has  on  its  corresponding  banner :  Love  of  God.  The 
consistent  socialist  says:  It  is  my  aim  to  do  unto 
others  as  I  would  have  them  do  unto  me  if  our  circum- 
stances were  reversed.  The  consistent  Christian  says : 
It  is  my  aim  to  love  God  with  all  my  heart,  mind  and 
soul. 

If  there  be  any  further  contrast  between  this  Com- 


76        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

munism  and  Christianism,  it  is  briefly  comprehended 
in  these  three  statements — in  themselves  sufficient  to 
show  how  absolutely  impossible  it  is  for  a  consistent 
Jesuine  Christian  to  be  a  consistent  Marxian  Socialist : 

1.  Marx  seeks  to  save  b}'  doing  away  with  both 
the  master  and  slave  classes — ^Jesus  by  exalting  the 
slave  class  above  the  master  class. 

2.  Marx  exhorts  the  slave  class  to  look  to  itself 
for  deliverance — Jesus  taught  it  to  look  to  a  God  for 
this. 

3.  Marx  promises  salvation  for  this  world  here 
and  now,  a  world  about  which  everybody  knows  much 
— ^Jesus  promised  it  for  another  world  elsewhere  and 
elsewhen,  a  world  about  which  nobody  knows  any- 
thing. 

The  world  has  never  had  a  gospel  which  is  at  all 
comparable  in  its  excellency  to  that  of  Marxian  So- 
cialism. Granting  the  gospel  of  Jesuine  Christianism 
to  be  superior  to  the  Mosaic,  Mohammedan  and 
Buddhistic  gospels,  it  is  nevertheless  almost  infinitely 
inferior  to  the  Marxian  gospel;  for,  whereas  the  gos- 
pel of  Jesuism  announces  that  God  will  save  a  few 
from  a  hell  below  the  earth  to  a  heaven  above  it,  the 
Marxian  gospel  announces  that  the  workers  may  save 
all  mankind  from  the  class  hell  to  a  classless  heaven 
on  the  earth. 

V. 

About  three  years  ago,*  I  discovered  that  I  had 
spent  a  long,  strenuous  and  open-handed  ministry  in 
preaching  lies  to  the  permanent  ruin  of  my  health  and 

♦In  1917.— W.  M.  B. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  77 

the  temporary  embarrassment  of  my.  purse ;  therefore, 
I  had  the  unhappy  experience  of  being  forced  to  see 
that  all  this  part  of  my  life,  its  prime,  had  been  mostly, 
if  not  wholly,  wasted  and  worse.  What  was  to  be 
done? 

My  friends  told  me  as  plainly  as  they  could,  and 
some  succeeded  in  making  it  brutally  plain,  that  in 
losing  my  faith  in  the  supematuralistic  dogmas  of 
traditional  Christianism,  as  they  are  literally  inter- 
preted in  the  doctrinaL  standards  of  the  orthodox 
churches,  I  had  lost  the  pearl  of  great  price. 

My  soul  told  me  that  I  had  never  possessed  this 
jewel,  but  that,  even  with  the  little  time  and  enfeebled 
strength  that  remained  to  me,  I  might  yet  find  it,  if 
only  I  should  cease  looking'  for  it  in  the  field  of  super- 
naturalism,  under  the  direction  of  divine  authority, 
and  begin  looking  for  it  in  the  field  of  naturalism, 
under  the  direction  of  human  reason. 

Happily,  where  faith  went  out  courage  came  in,  and 
it  increased  with  my  desperation  until  (though  stand- 
ing on  the  shore  of  death  where  the  deep  and  un- 
known stream  lies  darkly  between  the  present  and 
future)  I  could  and  I  did  undertake  the  supreme  task 
of  my  life— the  breaking  of  the  chains  by  which  I 
was  bound  as  a  slave  to  the  degrading  superstition 
,  that  I  was,  both  by  an  inherited  and  cultivated  dis- 
position, a  doomed  man,  and  by  an  inherent  weak- 
ness, a  helpless  one  with  no  power  to  emancipate 
myself. 

Of  such  enslaving  chains  I  mention  three  among 
the  strongest,  the  severed  parts  of  which,  with  those 
of  all  the  rest,  now  lie  scattered  about  me:  (1)  the 


78        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

chain  of  the  fear  of  God;  (2)  the  chain  of  the  fear  of 
the  devil,  and  (3)  the  chain  of  the  fear  of  man. 

Hitherto  I  had  been  a  child,  thinking  as  a  child, 
understanding  as  a  child  and  speaking  as  a  child. 

Henceforth  I  was  to  be  a  man,  the  greatest,  con- 
scious, personal  being  who  has  anything  to  do  with 
this  world ;  and  as  a  man,  I  put  away  the  things  of  a 
child,  esjjecially  the  most  childish  of  all  things,  fear, 
the  fear  of  God,  the  fear  of  devil  and  the  fear  of  man. 

Preachers  of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations 
of  religion  say  that  the  fear  of  God  is  salvation.  It 
is  damnation.  No  one  who  has  fear  of  any  conscious, 
personal  master  whomsoever  or  wheresoever,  God  in 
heaven,  devil  in  hell  or  man  on  earth,  is  free  or  other 
than  a  slave.  Nor  has  any  such  attained  to  the  full 
stature  of  manhood. 

There  is  only  one  fear  which  saves  and  that  is  the 
fear  of  igfnorance.  The  world's  destroyer-^od  is  ignor- 
ance. There  is  no  other  devil  on  earth  or  in  hell  be- 
low it,  and  this  one  lives,  moves  and  has  his  being  in 
the  fear  of  knowledge. 

The  world's  saviour-god  is  knowledge.  There  is 
no  other  Christ  on  earth  or  in  any  heaven  above  it, 
and  this  one  lives,  moves  and  has  his  being  in  the 
fear  of  ignorance. 

Happily,  I  listened  to  my  soul  and  I  have  found  the 
pearl  of  great  price,  yes,  a  whole  bed  of  them,  so  that 
I  am  now  in  position  to  substitute  in  my  preaching  a 
truth  for  every  lie  I  used  to  preach,  and  thus  save 
myself;  but  woe  unto  me  unless  I  make  the  substi- 
tution by  ringing  out  the  lie  and  ringing  in  the  truth. 

Within  the  last  three  years  I  have  learned  that,  as 
I  have  not  been,  since  the  beginning  of  my  Christian 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  79 

ministry,  more  than  a  generation  ago,  a  producer,  I 
have  nothing  of  my  own  to  give  to  charity,  and  what 
is  true  of  me  is  true  of  Mrs.  Brown. 

No  one  is  a  producer  who  does  not  grow  things  on 
the  farm,  make  things  in  a  shop,  discover  things  in  a 
laboratory  or  render  some  necessary  or  helpful  ser- 
vice to  those  who  do  such  things.  I  have  done  noth- 
ing of  the  kind.  If  I  had  been  preaching  truths  I 
might  have  rendered  such  service,  but  I  preached  lies. 

Every  possession  rightfully  belongs  to  the  produc- 
tive worker  and  nothing  to  the  unproductive  idler. 
This  is  one  of  the  two  greatest  and  most  salutary 
among  all  the  truths  known  to  mankind.  Recently  I 
made  acknowledgment  of  it  on  the  pledges  to  a  good 
cause,  that  of  the  Red  Cross,  by  writing  on  their 
upper  left  hand  comers:  "The  gift  of  Unknown 
Laborers  through  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Brown,  whose 
possessions  are  the  fruits  of  their  enforced  toil  and 
sacrifices." 

By  this  acknowledgment  I  rang  out  a  great  lie — 
the  lie  which  makes  the  salvation  of  the  world  de- 
pend upon  the  capitalists  with  their  servants,  the 
preachers  on  the  right  and  the  politicians  on  the  left 
hand. 

Salvation  or,  what  is  the  same  reality,  civilization, 
always  has  been  and  always  will  be  dependent  upon 
the  producer.  It  will  never  be  attained  until  the  la- 
boring class  has  done  away  with  the  capitalist  class. 
The  ideal  civilization  (which  is  the  salvation  of  the 
world  from  its  unnecessary  sufferings,  especially  the 
overwhelming  ones  due  to  the  great  trinity  of  evils, 
war,  poverty  and  slavery)  is  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  an  impossibility  on  the  basis  of  class  sectarian- 


80        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

ism,  such  as  we  have  even  in  our  Anglo-American 
Christianity,  the  best  interpretation  of  traditional  re- 
ligion, and  in  our  American  democracy,  the  best  inter- 
pretation of  traditional  politics. 

Among  the  pathetic  things  about  war,  there  is  this, 
the  laboring  class  makes  by  far  the  greater  sacrifices, 
not  only  of  life  and  limb,  but  also  of  money. 

Quite  contrary  to  the  general  impression,  capital- 
ists, as  such,  pay  no  part  of  the  enormous  and  ruinous 
pecuniary  cost  of  war.  When  Mr.  Rockefeller  pays 
out  three  million  dollars  in  war  taxes  he  is  disposing 
of  what  rightfully  belongs  to  laborers,  because  they, 
not  he,  earned  it.  Capitalists,  as  such,  neither  earn 
nor  pay  anything,  in  time  of  either  war  or  peace. 

So  much  for  one  of  the  two  great  truths —  all  right- 
fully belongs  to  the  useful  worker.  The  other  truth, 
which  is  the  greater,  is  this:  Man  has  within  himself 
all  the  potentialities  of  his  own  life.  This  is  true  of 
the  universe  as  a  whole,  and,  therefore,  necessarily  so 
of  all  that  therein  is. 

The  sum  of  both  truths  is,  that  the  salvation  of  the 
world  is  wholly  dependent  upon  productive  laborers 
and,  that  they  must  look  individually  only  to  the  ex- 
ertion of  their  own  mental  and  physical  powers  and 
collectively  to  co-operation  with  each  other  for  the 
accomplishment  of  their  mission. 

Through  the  whole  of  my  past  ministry  in  the  field 
I  rang  out  these  great  truths  and  rang  a  great  lie  in 
by  representing  that  the  salvation  of  the  world  de- 
pends upon  a  potentiality  which  is  in  the  sky,  and  not 
in  man,  that  heaven  is  above  the  earth  and  hell  below 
it,  not  on  it. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  81 

When  I  commenced  my  present  ministry  in  the 
study, 

I  sent  my  Soul  through  the  Invisible, 
Some  letter  of  that  After-life  to  spell; 
And  by  and  by  my  Soul  retum'd  to  me. 
And  answer'd  *I  Myself  am  Heaven  and  Hell !' 

— Omar. 

Omar,  the  poetic  astronomer,  might  have  added  a 
quatrain  which  would  have  closed,  "I  myself  am 
God."  This  is,  in  effect,  what  Jesus  did  say :  "I  and 
my  Father  are  one."  This  is  as  true  of  you  and  me 
and  of  every  man,  woman  and  child  as  it  was  of  Jesus. 

And,  Jesus  represented  that  God,  both  as  Father 
and  Son,  dwells  in  the  hearts  of  believers.  But  every 
relevant  fact  which  has  been  scientifically  established 
as  such  (and  there  is  a  whole  mountain  of  them) 
points  to  the  conclusion  that  Christians  are  no  more 
divine  than  other  people,  and  that,  as  to  his  essen- 
tial nature,  no  man  would  be  less  divine  than  he  is  if 
Jesus  had  never  been  bom. 

Gods  in  the  skies  (Jesus,  Jehovah,  Allah,  Buddha) 
are  all  right  as  subjective  symbols  of  human  poten- 
tialities and  attributes  and  of  natural  laws,  even  as 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  on  a  pole,  Uncle  Sam  in  the 
capitol  and  Santa  Claus  in  a  sleigh  are  all  right  as  such 
symbols;  but  such  gods  are  all  wrong,  if  regarded  as 
objective  realities  existing  independently  of  those 
who  created  them  as  divinities  and  placed  them  in 
celestial  habitations. 

What  is  true  of  the  gods  is  equally  so  of  all  the 
supernaturalistic  dogmas  of  the  several  traditional  in- 
terpretations of  religion.    Insofar  as  they  are  not  pure 


82        COMMUNISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

superstitions,  they  are  symbols  of  imaginary  events 
which  people  think  should,  or  must  have  occurred  in 
the  past  or  should,  or  must  occur  in  the  future;  not 
statements  of  historical  events  which  have  occurred 
or  are  to  occur. 

So  far  I  have  not  found  it  necessary  to  renounce 
the  Christian  God  or  any  of  the  things  which  go  with 
him  and  I  have  no  idea  of  doing  this,  any  more  than 
I  have  of  renouncing  the  American  Uncle  Sam  and 
the  things  which  go  with  him,  but  I  place  the  Brother 
Jesus  of  the  Christian  religion  and  the  Uncle  Sam  of 
the  American  politics  on  the  same  footing  with  each 
other  and  with  others  of  their  kind  as  subjective  real- 
ities. I  could  be  a  Jew  and  an  Englishman  as  con- 
scientiously as  a  Christian  and  an  American.  Many 
of  the  early  Christians  were  also  Pagans,  worship- 
pers of  other  Gods  than  Jesus. 

Nor  is  this  all  or  even  much  more  than  half  of  my 
religious  and  political  levelism. 

On  the  one  hand,  as  a  religionist,  I  can  be  any  and 
everything  but  an  orthodox  sectarian.  This  orthodoxy 
is  a  libel  against  humanity.  The  world  owes  to  it  a 
great  part  of  all  its  unnecessary  troubles — those  which 
are  brought  about  by  the  triune  devil  of  persecution, 
ignorance  and  superstition. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  a  politician,  I  can  be  any  and 
everything  but  a  nationalistic  f|ectarian.  This  na- 
tionalism is  a  libel  against  humanity.  The  world 
owes  to  it  a  great  part  of  all  its  unnecessary  troubles 
— those  which  are  brought  upon  it  by  the  triune  devil 
of  war,  poverty  and  slavery. 

Hoping  that  you  will  abandon  Jesuine  socialism  for 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM         83 

Marxian  communism  and  join  me  in  an  effort  to  ban- 
ish the  fictitious,  superstitious  gods  from  the  skies 
and  the  lying,  robbing  capitalists  from  the  earth,  I  am 
with  every  good  wish, 

Very  cordially  yours, 

Brownella  Cottage,  WM.  M.  BROWN. 

Gallon,  Ohio. 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST. 

In  northern  climes,  the  polar  bear 

Protects  himself  with  fat  and  hair, 

Where  snow  is  deep  and  ice  is  stark, 

And  half  the  year  is  cold  and  dark ; 

He  still  survives  a  clime  like  that 

By  growing  fur,  by  growing  fat. 

These  traits,  O  bear,  which  thou  transmittest 

Prove  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest. 

To  polar  regions  waste  and  wan. 

Comes  the  encroaching  race  of  man, 

A  puny,  feeble,  little  bubber. 

He  has  no  fur,  he  has  no  blubber. 

The  scornful  bear  sat  down  at  ease 

To  see  the  stranger  starve  and  freeze ; 

But,  lo!  the  stranger  slew  the  bear, 

And  ate  his  fat  and  wore  his  hair ; 

These  deeds,  O  Man,  which  thou  committest 

Prove  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest. 

In  modern  times  the  millionaire 
Protects  himself  as  did  the  bear: 
Where  Poverty  and  Hunger  are 
He  counts  his  bullion  by  the  car ; 
Where  thousands  perish  still  he  thrives — 
The  wealth,  O  Croesus,  thou  transmittest 
Proves  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest. 

But,  lo,  some  people  odd  and  funny, 

Some  men  without  a  cent  of  money — 

The  simple  common  human  race 

Chose  to  improve  their  dwelling  place: 

They  had  no  use  for  millionaires. 

They  calmly  said  the  world  was  theirs. 

They  were  so  wise,  so  strong,  so  many. 

The  Millionaires? — there  wasn't  any. 

These  deeds,  O  Man,  which  thou  committest 

Prove  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest. 

— Mrs.  Charlotte  Stetson. 


KARL  MARX 


#  m  ^-^ 


I, 


CHARLES  DARWIN 


COMMUNISM  AND 
GHRISTIANISM 


ANALYZED  AND  CONTRASTED 

FROM  THE 

MARXIAN  AND  DARWINIAN 

POINTS  OF  VIEW 


PART  II. 

Christianism :      A     Supematuralistic     Other-worldly 

Gospel  for  the  Passing  Age  of  Class  Inequality 

and  Economic  Slavery— An  Open  Letter 

to  a  Christian  Theologian  and 

Brother  Churchman. 


Revolutionize      capitalism      out     of 
•tate  and  orthodoxy  out  of  church. 


FOREWORD* 

The  contradiction  in  terms  known  as  the  Christian 
Socialist  is  inevitably  antagonistic  to  working-class 
interests  and  the  waging  of  the  class  struggle.  His 
policy  (that  of  the  Christian  Socialist)  is  the  con- 
ciliation of  classes,  the  fraternity  of  robber  and  rob- 
bed, not  the  end  of  classes.  His  avowed  object,  in- 
deed, is  usually  to  purge  the  Socialist  movement  of 
its  materialism,  and  this  means  to  purge  it  of  its  Soc- 
ialism and  to  divert  it  from  its  material  aims  to  the 
fruitless  chasing  of  spiritual  will-o'-the-wisps.  A 
Christian  Socialist  is,  in  fact,  an  anti-Socialist. 

Clearly,  then,  the  basis  of  Socialist  philosophy  is 
utterly  incompatible  with  religious  ideas;  indeed,  the 
latter  have  been  reduced  to  their  logical  absurdity  in 
what  is  called  "Christian  Science." 

Moreover,  the  consistent  Christian,  if  such  exists, 
could  look  upon  the  existing  world  only  as  an  essen- 
tial part  of  God's  plan,  to  be  accounted  for  only 
through  God,  and  modified  at  God's  pleasure.  He 
could  regard  those  who  sought  the  explanation  of 
social  conditions  in  purely  natural  causes,  and  who 
also  sought  to  take  advantage  of  economic  devdop- 
ment  in  order  to  turn  this  vale  of  tears  into  a  pleasant 
garden,  only  as  men  who  denied  by  their  acts  the  very 
basis  of  his  faith. 


*From  the  Official  Manifesto  by  the  Socialist  Party  of  Great 
Britain,  showing  the  Antagonism  between  Marxian  Socialism 
or  G>mmunism  and  Religion. — W.  M.  B. 


CHRISTIANISM:      A      SUPERNATURALISTIC 

OTHER-WORLDLY     GOSPEL     FOR     THE 

PASSING  AGE  OF  CLASS  INEQUALITY 

AND  ECONOMIC  SLAVERY. 

Come  over  and  help  us. 
Abandon  Reformatory  for 
Revolutionary    Socialism. 

My  Dear  Brother : 

Your  letter  (April  1st,  1930)  enclosing  an  essay, 
entitled,  Is  There  a  God,  came  duly  to  hand  and  I 
thank  you  warmly  for  it.  The  essay  is  a  masterpiece 
and  I  hope  you  can  let  me  keep  this  copy,  or  make 
another  for  myself,  for  reference  when  I  am  writing 
or  conversing  on  its  lines,  as  is  frequently  the  case. 

I. 

In  the  dispute  between  yourself  and  friend,  of  which 
you  speak,  you  are  altogether  right  and  he  is  entirely 
wrong.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is  a  disputation  as  to 
whether  or  not  the  Jewish-Christian  bible  contains 
an  infallible  revelation  from  an  omniscient  being,  a 
triune  god.  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.     It  does  not 

As  an  objectivity  there  is  no  such  divinity.  He  is  a 
subjectivity  existing  in  the  imagination  of  orthodox 
Christians.  You  do  not  agree  with  me  in  this,  but 
ever>'  day  of  thought  and  study  deepens  the  convic- 
tion that  it  is  true.  None  among  the  gods  of  the 
supernaturalistic  interpretations  of  religion  are  ob- 
jectivities. The  lesser  ones  are  generally  ghosts  of 
dead  men,  and  the  greater  are  versions  of  the  sun- 
mvth. 


90       CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

The  one  god  of  the  Jews  and  the  triune  god  of  the 
Christians,  if  taken  seriously,  are  superstitions;  and 
the  bible  revelations  of  their  willings  and  records  of 
their  doings,  if  taken  literally,  are  lies. 

Both    the    Old    and    New   Testaments    are    utterly 

■^  worthless  as  history.     The  twelve  patriarchs  of  the 

Jewish  God,  Jehovah,  are  not  historical  personages, 

but  myths,  and  this  is  true  of  the  twelve  apostles  of 

the  Christian  God,"  Jesus. 

Yes,  the  Old  Testament  is  the  Jewish  version  of 
the  immemorial  and  universal  sun-myth,  rewritten 
several  times  for  the  purpose,  not  of  telling  any  truth, 
but  of  imposing  the  fiction  that  Jehovah  and  his  peo- 
ple constitute  the  greatest  procession  that  ever  came 
down  the  pike  of  supernaturalism.  The  New  Testa- 
ment is  the  Christian  version  of  the  same  myth,  only 
with  the  view  of  showing  that  Jehovah  and  the  Jews 
were  not,  but  Jesus  and  Christians  are,  this  proces- 
sion. 

In  itself,  the  sun-myth,  as  symbolism,  is  not  only 
poetically  beautiful,  but  also  scientifically  true;  yet, 
as  literalism,' it  is  in  the  case  of  the  ignorant,  super- 
stition, and  in  the  case  of  the  educated,  self-decep- 
tion or  hypocrisy. 

The  sun  is,  in  a  very  literal  and  real  sense,  the  cre- 
ator-god in  whom  this  world  lives,  moves  and  has  its 
being;  and  he  is  the  saviour-god  who  was  born  of  a 
virgin  nebula,  and  every  winter  descends  into  hell  and 
rises  from  the  dead  (the  southern  solstice)  by  a  new 
birth  and  ascends  into  heaven  to  be  seated  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  father  (the  sky)  at  the  northern 
solstice,  and  finally  he  is  the  illuminator-god  who 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  91 

And  the  apostles  who  preached  the  gospel  of  the 
redemption  of  the  world  are  the  twelve  signs  of  the 
zodiac  through  which  the  sun  apparently  passes  in  its 
annual  ascension  to  the  summer  solstice  and  descen- 
sion  to  the  winter  solstice. 

Nor  is  this  all :  "the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away 
the  sins  of  the  world"  is  the  sign  of  the  ?odiac,  Aries 
(sheep,  ram)  through  which  the  sun  passes  towards 
the  end  of  March,  when  all  the  saviour-gods  annually 
died  and  rose  again.  The  rising  symbolizes  the  return 
of  the  sun  towards  the  northern  solstice  from  the 
southern  one,  upon  which  return  seed-time  and  har- 
vest are  dependent,  without  which  the  world  would 
perish,  not  indeed  by  sin  but  by  starvation. 

Jehovah  is  the  sun-myth  rewritten  to  fit  in  with  the 
ideals  and  hopes  of  the  owning,  master  class  of  the 
Jews. 

Jesus  is  the  sun-myth  rewritten  to  fit  in  with  the 
ideals  and  hopes  of  the  owning,  master  class  of  the 
Christians. 

The  Christian  god,  Jesus,  is  an  improvement  upon 
the  Jewish  god,  Jehovah,  because  of  the  division  of 
labor.  The  task  of  the  owning,  master  class  is  a  two- 
fold one,  the  robbing  of  the  weak  owners  by  the  strong 
ones  in  wars,  and  the  robbing  of  the  slaves  by  the 
masters  which,  under  the  capitalist  system,  is  done 
in  surplus  profits. 

Jehovah  serves  Christians  as  the  god  of  war.  In 
his  name  they  wage  wars,  either  as  groups  within  a 
nation  having  different  commercial  interests,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Civil  AVar  of  the  United  States,  or  as  na- 
tions against  nations  with  different  commercial  inter- 
ests, as  in^the  case  of  the  Revolutionary  War  of  the 


92       CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Colonies   with    England,   or   the   World   War  of  the 
Allied  countries  with  the  Central  ones. 

Jesus  serves  Christians  as  the  god  of  slavery.  When 
they  have  successfully  waged  a  war  of  conquest,  as 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  did  against  the  Indians  of  Amer- 
ica, or  when  they  have  appropriated  all  the  mean^and 
machines  of  production,  as  the  capitalists  have  every- 
where, they  reconcile  the  propertyless  to  a  terrestrial 
hell  of  toil,  want,  sorrow  and  slavery  by  preaching 
the  Jesuine  gospel  of  hope  for  a  celestial  heaven  of 
eternal  rest,  joy,  plenty  and  freedom. 

Some  for  the  Glories  of  This  World ;  and  some 
Sigh  for  the  Prophet's  Paradise  to  come ; 
Ah,  take  the  Cash,  and  let  the  Credit  go. 
Nor  heed  the  rumble  of  a  distant  Drum. 

— Omar. 

In  remaking  the  Jewish  god  to  suit  their  purposes 
of  robbing  and  enslaving,  the  Christian  owning  mas- 
ter class  provided  for  a  further  division  of  his  work 
by  creating  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  devotes  himself  to 
the  giving  of  new  revelations  of  the  will  of  Jehovah 
and  interpreting  the  earlier  ones  as  they  are  recorded 
in  the  bible. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  the  masters  are  the 
strong  i>eople  of  the  world,  but  they  are  not.  Labor 
is  really  the  giant,  the  Samson,  and  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  the  pigmy,  capital,  to  rob  him,  but  for  his 
lack  of  knowledge.  The  Holy  Ghost  sees  to  it  that 
the  slave  class  is  kept  in  ignorance. 

The  English-German,  or  if  you  prefer,  the  German- 
English  war  has  been  an  eye-opener  to  the  giant, 
labor,  and  capital  is  ruined  unless  he  can  get  him 
to  sleep  again. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  93 

Capital  knovv9  that  Marx  was  right  in  characteriz- 
ing- the  orthodox  interpretations  of  religion,  including 
the  Christian  one,  and  especially  it,  as  a  sleeping  po- 
tion. 

The  churches  were  the  dormitories  in  which  the 
slaves  slept  through  the  night  of  the  dark  ages  of 
traditionalism,  but  the  light  of  the  age  of  scientism 
is  breaking  upon  the  world  and  most  of  the  slaves 
have  left  the  churches  and  are  now  beyond  the  reach 
of  their  care-takers,  the  preachers. 

When  I  wrote  the  Level  Plan  for  Church  Union,*  I 
believed  that  the  coming  together  of  the  churches 
-^would  prove  to  be  a  blessing  to  the  world,  but  I  am 
now  persuaded  that  it  would  be  a  curse,  because  the 
league  of  churches  would  co-operate  with  the  league 
of  nations  in  its  robbing  and  enslaving  schemes,  the 
churches  doing  the  lying  and  the  nations  the  coercing. 

II. 

We  are  living  in  the  age  of  scientism  and,  in  the 
case  of  its  true  sons  and  daughters,  only  scientifically 
demonstrated  facts  count  in  any  argumentation. 

From  the  scientific  point  of  view  it  is  seen  that  there 
is  but  one  universal  Kingdom  of  Life,  Nature.  This 
kingdom  may  be  divided  into  three,  perhaps  four, 
states  constituting  the  United  States  of  Life :  the  min- 
eral, the  vegetable,  the  animal  and  the  human. 

Beginning  with  the  highest,  each  of  these  states,  ex- 
cept the  lowest,  is  dependent  upon  the  next  lower. 
The  only  independent,  autonomous  state  in  the  king- 
dom of  life  is  the  mineral.  This  is  the  greatest  both  as 

♦Published  1910.— W.  M.  B. 


94       CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

to  its  extent  and  importance.  It  is  the  common  source 
of  every  supply  of  all  the  states  of  life,  and  the  seat  of 
each  of  their  governments. 

All  theologians  and  some  metaphysicians  postulate 
a  fifth  state  of  life,  the  divine,  placing  it  above  the 
rest  as  their  source. 

Comte,  who  preceded  Marx  as  a  social  philosopher, 
and  who  is  the  founder  of  modern  socialism  of  the 
reformatory  type,  as  Marx  is  of  the  revolutionary  one, 
had  this  to  say  about  the  theologians,  metaphysicians 
and  scientists,  and  he  was  right : 

From  the  study  of  the  development  of  human  in- 
telligence, in  all  directions,  and  through  all  times,  the 
discovery  arises  of  a  great  fundamental  law,  to  which 
it  is  necessarily  subject,  and  which  has  a  solid  foun- 
dation of  proof,  both  in  the  facts  of  our  organization 
and  in  our  historical  experience.  This  law  is  this: 
that  each  of  our  leading  conceptions — each  branch  of 
our  knowledge — passes  successively  through  three  dif- 
ferent theoretical  conditions:  the  theological,  or  ficti- 
tious, the  metaphysical,  or  abstract ;  and  the  scientific, 
or  positive.  In  other  words,  the  human  mind,  by  its 
nature,  employs  in  its  progress  three  methods  of  philo- 
sophizing, the  character  of  which  is  essentially  different 
and  radically  opposed ;  viz.,  the  theological  method,  the 
metaphysical  and  the  positive.  Hence  arise  three  philos- 
ophies, or  general  systems  of  conceptions  on  the  aggre- 
gate of  phenomena,  each  of  which  excludes  the  others. 
The  first  is  the  necessary  point  of  departure  of  the  hu- 
man understanding;  the  third  is  its  fixed  and  definite 
state.    The  second  is  merely  a  state  of  transition. 

In  order  Jor  a  man  who  has  reached  the  scientific 
stage  in  his  intellectual  development  to  make  anything 
out  of  the  reasonings  of  those  who  are  still  in  the 
stage  of  theological  childhood,  or  in  that  of  metaphys- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  95 

ical  adolescence,  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  use  their 
insubstantialities  as  symbols  of  his  substantialities. 

The  only  difference  that  I  can  see  between  a  theo- 
logian and  a  metaphysician  is  that,  whereas  the 
former  personifies  a  generality  which  is  the  creation  of 
his  imagination,  calling  it  a  god,  the  latter  objectifies 
a  particularity  which  is  the  creation  of  his  imagination 
calling  it  an  entity;  but  all  such  personifications  and 
objectifications  (gods,  things-in-themselves,  vital  en- 
tities, souls)  are  alike  fictitious,  because  the  childish 
theologians  and  metaphysicians  proceed  on  the  basis 
of  philosophically  assumed  realities,  not  on  scien- 
tifically established  facts  which  pave  the  way  on  which 
an  adult  proceeds. 

Comte  analyzes  the  difference  between  the  intel- 
lectuality of  theological  children,  metaphysical  youths 
and  scientific  adults  as  follows: 

In  the  theological  state,  the  human  mind,  seeking  the 
essential  nature  of  beings,  the  first  and  final  causes  (the 
origin  and  purpose)  of  all  effects— in  short,  absolute 
knowledge — supposes  all  phenomena  to  be  produced  by 
the  immediate  action  of  supernatural  beings. 

In  the  metaphysical  state,  which  is  only  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  first,  the  mind  supposes,  instead  of  super- 
natural beings,  abstract  forces,  veritable  entities  (that 
is,  personified  abstractions)  inherent  in  all  beings,  and 
capable  of  producing  all  phenomena.  What  is  called  the 
explanation  of  phenomena  is,  in  this  stage,  a  mere  ref- 
erence of  each  to  its  proper  entity. 

In  the  final,  the  positive  state,  the  mind  has  given 
over  the  vain  search  after  absolute  notions,  the  ongin 
and  destination  of  the  universe,  and  the  causes  of 
phenomena,  and  applies  itself  to  the  study  of  their  laws 
—that  is,  their  invariable  relations  of  succession  and 
resemblance.     Reasoning  and   observation,   duly  com- 


96       CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

bined,  are  the  means  of  this  knowledge.  What  is  now 
understood  when  we  speak  of  an  explanation  of  facts  is 
simply  the  establishment  of  a  connection  between  single 
phenomena  and  some  general  facts  the  number  of  which 
continually  diminishes  with  the  progress  of  science. 

There  is  no  science  which,  having  attained  the  posi- 
tive stage,  does  not  bear  the  marks  of  having  passed 
through  the  others.  Some  time  since  it  was  (whatever 
it  might  be  now.)  composed,  as  we  can  now  perceive, 
of  metaphysical  abstractions ;  and,  further  back  in  the 
course  of  time,  it  took  its  form  from  theological  con- 
ceptions. Our  most  advanced  sciences  still  bear  very 
evident  marks  of  the  two  earlier  periods  through  which 
they  passed. 

The  progress  of  the  individual  mind  is  not  only  an 
illustration,  but  an  indirect  evidence  of  that  of  the  gen- 
eral mind.  The  point  of  departure  of  the  individual  and 
the  race  being  the  same,  the  phases  of  the  mind  of  men 
correspond  to  the  epochs  of  the  mind  of  the  race.  How 
each  of  us  is  aware,  if  he  looks  back  upon  his  own  his- 
tory, that  he  Avas  a  theologian  in  his  childhood,  a  meta- 
physician in  his  youth  and  a  natural  philosopher  in  his 
manhood.  All  men  who  are  up  to  their  age  can  verify 
this  for  themselves. 

According  to  the  scientific  classification,  there  -are 
only  three  kingdoms  or  states  of  life,  the  mineral,  the 
vegetable  and  the  animal. 

The  life  of  the  vegetable  kingdom  has  arisen  out  of 
the  life  of  the  mineral  kingdom  and  is  sustained  by  it. 

The  distinguished  scientist.  Professor  Lowell,  says, 
"there  is  now  no  more  reason  to  doubt  that  plants 
grew  out  of  chemical  affinity  than  to  doubt  that  stones 
did,"  and  nearly  all  outstanding  zoologists  would  say 
as  much  of  animals. 

Sir  J.  Burdon  Sanderson,  one  of  the  most  eminent 
am-^tig  biologists,  insists  that  "in  physiology  the  word 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  97 

life  is  understood  to  mean  the  chemical  and  physical 
activities  of  the  parts  of  which  the  organism  consists." 
The  renowned  Sir  Ray  Lankester  strenuously  holds 
that  "zoology  is  the  science  which  seeks  to  arrange 
and  discuss  the  phenomena  of  animal  life  and  form, 
as  the  outcome  of  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  physics 
and  chemistry,"  and  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  he 
knows  of  no  leading  biologist  who  is  of  a  different 
opinion.  The  prince  of  biologists,  the  late  Professor 
Haeckel,  occupied  this  position  and  impregnably  forti- 
fied it  in  several  great  books,  especially  in  his  "Riddle 
of  the  Universe." 

There  is  no  force  that  is  not  life,  nor  life  which  is 
not  force ;  and  there  is  no  life  or  force,  about  which  we 
know  anything,  without  a  body  or  chemical  labora- 
tory. 

So  far  as  is  known,  there  is  only  one  life,  and  it  is 
force.  The  difference  between  lives  is  a  question  of 
the  organism,  the  laboratory,  which  gives  embodiment 
to  force. 

The  life  that  enables  the  wheels  of  a  locomotive  to 
go,  the  sap  of  a  tree  to  flow,  the  heart  of  an  animal' 
to  beat  and  the  brain  of  a  man  to  think  is  the  same 
chemical  potentiality  differently  organized. 

During  all  historical  time  and  over  all  the  earth, 
under  one  name  or  another,  the  whole  world  has  kept 
days  of  rejoicing  for  life,  especially  Thanksgiving, 
Christmas,  New  Year  and  Easter. 

Nothing  is  so  wonderful  as  life  and  perhaps  the 
greatest  of  its  wonders  is  that  all  of  it  is  of  the  same 
kind. 

Everything  and  every  being  is  alive  with  the  same 
life.      The    Thanksgiving    day   sheaf   of  wheat,   the 


98       CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Christmas  day  Son  of  Man  and  the  Easter  day  Son  of 
God  (if  there  are  conscious,  personal  gods  and  they 
have  sons)  are  alive  and  their  life  is  the  same,  the 
difference  being  wholly  in  the  form  and  degree,  not  at 
all  in  kind. 

A  proof  of  the  oneness  and  sameness  of  all  life,  not- 
withstanding its  widely  different  forms  and  degrees, 
is  the  fact  that  a  bar  of  iron,  a  stick  of  wood,  a  piece 
of  flesh  and  a  section  of  brain  respond  alike  to  the 
same  electrical  stimulus,  and  all  may  be  poisoned  or 
otherwise  killed  so  that  they  will  make  no  response 
to  it.  Perhaps  even  a  more  conclusive  evidence  is  that 
the  eggs  (every  form  of  both  vegetable  and  animal 
life  develops  from  an  egg)  of  some  animals  rather 
high  in  the  one  tree  of  mundane  life,  which  has  a 
common  root  and  a  stump,  but  two  stems,  the  vege- 
table and  the  animal,  can  be  mechanically  fertilized 
by  chemical  processes. 

Even  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  the  most  conspicuous 
among  the  comparatively  few  men  of  science  who 
hold  to  the  theory  that  life  comes  to  the  earth  as 
"vital  entities  of  celestial  origin  and  destination,  makes 
this  fatal  admission :  "There  is  plenty  of  physics  and 
chemistry  and  mechanics  about  every  vital  action." 

On  the  theory  of  traditional  Christianity  there  was 
no  physics,  chemistry  or  mechanics  connected  with 
the  vital  actions  which  originally  brought  the  universe 
and  all  that  therein  was,  including  the  earth  with  its 
vegetable,  animal  and  human  kingdoms,  into  exist- 
ence. 

Every  representative  of  each  form  of  life  in  these 
kingdoms  (in  the  vegetable:  a  grass  blade,  a  wheat 
stalk,  an  oak  tree ;  or  in  the  animal :  an  insect,  a  horse. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM  99 

a  man)  is  a  chemical  laboratory  for  the  production, 
sustentation,  advancement  and  procreation  of  a  par- 
ticular type  of  one,  universal  life.  These  labora- 
tories have  all  the  potentialities  of  their  respective 
lives  within  themselves — no  laboratory,  no  chemistry; 
no  chemistry,  no  life. 

What  life  is,  both  as  to  its  manifestation  and  char- 
acter, is  determined  by  the  form  of  organization 
through  which  force,  all  there  is  of  life,  becomes  a  par- 
ticular and  differentiated  vital  phenomenon.  This  is 
as  true  of  states  and  churches  as  it  is  of  trees  and  men, 
for  a  church  or  a  state  is  a  vital  phenomenon  as  really 
so  as  a  tree  or  a  man. 

The  trouble  with  every  reformatory  socialism  of 
modern  times  is,  that  it  undertakes  the  impossibility 
of  changing  the  fruit  of  the  capitalistic  state  into  that 
of  the  communistic  one,  without  changing  the  political 
organism ;  but  to  do  that  is  as  impossible  as  to  gather 
grapes  from  thorns  or  figs  from  thistles.  Hence  an 
uprooting  and  replanting  are  necessary  (a  revolution 
not  a  reformation)  which  will  give  the  world  a  new 
tree  of  state. 

Capitalism  no  longer  grows  the  fruits  (foods, 
clothes  and  houses)  which  are  necessary  to  the  sus- 
tenance of  all  the  world.  Hence  it  must  be  dug  up 
by  the  roots  in  order  that  a  tree  which  is  so  organized 
that  it  will  bear  these  necessities  for  the  whole  world 
may  be  planted  in  its  place. 

The  people  of  Russia  have  accomplished  this  up- 
rooting and  replanting  (this  revolution)  in  the  case 
of  their  state,  and  those  of  every  nation  are  destined 
to  do  the  same  in  one  way  or  another,  each  according 
to  its   historical   and   economic   development,   some 


100     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

perhaps  with  violence,  most,  I  hope,  peaceably.  The 
Russian  Bolsheviki  occupy  the  highest  peak  in  man's 
history;  and,  while  they  stand,  the  world  will  be  safe 
for  industrial  democracy.  This  democracy  is  the  tree 
of  life  whose  fruits  are  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
nations  and  whose  very  leaves  are  for  their  healing. 

The  only  lives  of  which  we  need  know  aught  are 
those  that  we  are  living  in  our  bodies  by  chemical 
processes  and  shall  live  in  the  race  by  conscious  or 
unconscious  influences;  for,  if  there  is  another  life,  it 
will  take  care  of  itself,  if  we  take  care  of  these. 

Since,  therefore,  all  life  is  on  a  level  and  since  mor- 
ality, religion  and  Christianity  are  but  manifestations 
of  it,  do  you  not  see  how  profoundly  and  incontro- 
vertibly  true  is  my  levelism? 

According  to  this  levelism  all  interpretations  of 
Christianity  (protestant  and  catholic — congregational, 
presbyterian,  episcopalian  and  papal)  and  all  the  in- 
terpretations of  religion  (Christian,  Jewish,  Moham- 
medan, Buddhistic  and  the  rest)  are  essentially  on  the 
same  footing,  the  difference  between  them  being 
wholly  a  question  of  natural  excellencies,  not  at  all  of 
supernatural  uniqueness. 

The  science  of  biology  establishes  my  levelism  by 
proving  that  animal  and  human  life  are  on  a  level  as 
to  their  origin,  character  and  destiny. 

The  science  of  sociology  establishes  my  levelism 
by  proving  that  animal  and  human  institutions  are  on 
a  level,  and  that  therefore,  there  is  nothing  more  su- 
pernatural about  a  human  state  or  church  than  about 
an  ant  hill  or  a  bee  hive. 

The  science  of  literary  criticism  establishes  my  lev- 
elism by  proving  that  the  bibles  of  the  several  inter- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        101 

pretations  of  religion  are  on  a  level  as  to  their  entirely 
human  origin  and  authority. 

The  science  of  the  comparative  interpretations  of 
religion  establishes  my  levelism  by  proving  that  all 
the  conscious,  personal  creator-gods,  destroyer-gods, 
saviour-gods  and  illuminator-gods,  with  all  their 
angels,  heavens  and  hells,  are  so  many  myths— crea- 
tions of  the  human  imagination,  subjective  fictions, 
not  objective  realities. 

Until  comparatively  recent  times,  through  a^l  the 
theological  history  of  mankind,  the  sun  was  almost 
universally  regarded  as  a  god.  Manifestly,  without  it 
there  could  be  no  life  on  earth,  and  its  annually  re- 
curring motions  are  such  as  to  give  the  impression  of 
birth  and  death— of  birth  by  ascension  into  the 
heaven  of  the  summer  solstice— of  death  by  descension 
into  the  hell  or  grave  of  the  winter  solstice.  Not  only 
is  the  sun  the  giver  and  sustainer  of  life,  but  it  is 
also  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world. 

Modern  science  justifies  this  ancient  conception  as 
to  the  dependence  of  the  earth,  and  all  that  thereon 
is,  upon  the  sun  for  its  being.  By  a  slight  adaptation 
men  of  science  and  scientific  philosophers  could  use 
the  very  words  of  the  apostle  John  at  the  opening  of 
his  version  of  the  Christian  gospel,  where  he  says  of 
Jesus,  what  they  say  of  the  sun: 

All  things  were  made  by  him  and  without  him  was 
not  anything  made  that  was  made.  In  him  is  life; 
and  the  life  is  the  light  of  men. 

The  birth,  death,  descension,  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion of  all  the  Saviour-gods,  not  excepting  Jesus,  are 
versions  of  the  sun-myth. 


immmmmm^- 


102     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Yet  the  naturalness,  the  universalness,  the  beauti- 
fulness  and  withal  the  profound  truthfulness  of  this 
myth  are  such  as  to  render  it  almost  as  undesirable 
as  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  relegate  it  to  the  realm 
of  superstition,  to  which  it  should  undoubtedly  be 
assigned  if  a  literal  interpretation  is  a  necessity. 

The  more  science  advances,  the  more  of  precious 
poetry  and  pathos,  and  of  deep  verity,  too,  is  seen  in 
the  saviour-gods,  who  are  essentially  the  same  myth- 
ical personifications  of  the  glorious  sun  and  of  the 
happy  events  of  its  annual  career,  because  from  it 
the  earth  with  its  brother  and  sister  planets  had  their 
origin,  and  because  from  it  the  earth,  not  to  speak  of 
the  other  planets,  has  the  heat,  light  and  force  which 
make  its  life  a  possibility. 

There  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  any  one  among 
the  gods  of  the  four  old  supernaturalistic  interpreta- 
tions of  religion  (Jehovah,  Jesus,  Allah,  Buddha)  or 
that  either  of  the  gods  of  the  two  new  interpretations 
by  the  renowned  physicist.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and  the 
distinguished  sociologist,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  has  had 
more  to  do  in  creating,  sustaining  and  governing  this 
world  than  another,  that  is  to  say,  there  is  no  ground 
for  believing  that  the  personal,  conscious  gods  in  the 
skies,  either  individually  or  collectively,  have  had  any- 
thing at  all  to  do  with  it. 

Science,  as  it  is  understood  by  the  great  majority 
of  its  exponents,  teaches  that  the  earth  (with  all 
things,  physical  and  psychical,  which  contribute  to 
make  its  world  what  it  has  been,  is,  and  is  to  be)  was 
originally  in  the  sun,  and  would  quickly  disappear 
into  its  original,  unorganized  elements  but  for  the  sun. 

This  is  as  true  of  man  as  of  all  else.    He  with  his 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        103 

brain  and  its  thought;  with  his  hand  and  its  skill; 
with  his  homes,  farms,  cities,  mines,  shops,  stores, 
trains,  ships,  schools,  hospitals  .and  churches ;  with  his 
hate,  bestiality  and  barbarism,  and  with  his  love,  hu- 
maneness and  civilization,  was  in  the  sun,  billions  of 
years  before  his  appearance  on  the  earth. 

Speaking  of  things  appertaining  to  the  world  war: 
there  in  the  sun,  before  it  had  thrown  off  the  earth, 
were  the  kaiser  on  the  throne,  the  president  in  the 
white  house,  the  millions  of  soldiers,  the  uniforms, 
the  rations,  the  forts,  the  cannons,  guns,  powder  and 
shot,  the  trenches,  the  barbed  wire,  the  dreadnoughts, 
the  submarines  the  aeroplanes,  the  wireless  telegraph 
stations,  the  wounded,  their  sufferings  and  groans,  the 
doctors  and  nurses,  the  corpses,  the  cripples,  the 
broken  hearts ;  yes,  and  all  the  things  connected  with 
that  terrible  war :  the  bereaved  mothers,  the  widowed 
wives,  the  outraged  girls,  the  ruined  country,  the 
wrecked  cities,  were  in  the  sun  from  its  beginning, 
indeed  while  it  was  yet  a  nebula,  many  thousands  of 
millions  of  years  previous  to  the  birth  of  the  earth. 

If  .we  except  intruders  into  our  solar  system,  such 
as  comets  and  their  comparatively  inconsiderable  ef- 
fects, we  may  say  that  every  physical  or  psychical 
reality  which  at  any  time  has  entered  into  the  history 
of  this  planet  and  that  of  its  brothers  and  sisters  was 
in  that  vast  flowing,  swirling,  revolving  globe  of  gases 
which  is  known  to  have  been  at  one  time  at  least  five 
billion  miles  in  diameter,  or  fifteen  billions  in  circum- 
ference. 

Of  course  no  phenomenon,  such  as  Jesus  hanging 
on  the  cross,  if  He  lived  and  was  crucified,  was  in  the 
sun  as  an  actuality,  but  only  as  a  potentiality.    Nev- 


104     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

ertheless,  He,  with  His  doctrine  and  His  suffering, 
was  there,  else  He  would  never  have  been  anywhere, 
not  in  the  realm  of  history,  not  even  in  the  realm  of 
imagination. 

The  universe  is  ever  all  that  it  can  be,  and  every  po- 
tentiality which  contributes  to  make  it  so  is  within 
itself.  What  is  true  in  this  respect  of  the  universe  as 
a  whole  is  equally  so  of  every  part  of  it,  including  man, 
and  especially  him,  because  he  is  exceptionally  capable 
of  controlling  his  own  destiny,  being  able  not  only  to 
preserve  life  by  a  discovery  of  and  conformity  to  the 
laws  upon  which  it  is  dependent,  but  also  to  enlarge 
and  enrich  its  content  by  making  these  laws  co-opera- 
tive servants. 

The  time  cannot  be  far  off  when  it  will  be  seen  by 
all  educated,  thoughtful  men  and  women  that  if  the 
traditional,  supernaturalistic  interpretation  of  Chris- 
tianity is  the  only  possible  one,  its  message  is  not  a 
■gospel,  because  its  teaching  touching  three  funda- 
mentals is,  in  each  case,  contrary  to  that  of  three  rele- 
vant sciences: 

1.  The  sciences  of  astronomy,  geology  and  biology 
teach  that  the  representation  of  the  traditional  super- 
naturalistic  interpretation  of  Christianity  to  the  effect 
that  the  universe,  including  the  earth  with  its  physical 
and  psychical  life,  was  supernaturally  created  out  of 
nothing  by  a  conscious,  personal  god  is  not  true  and 
therefore  can  be  no  part  of  any  gospel ;  for,  according 
to  the  teaching  of  these  three  sciences,  the  truth  is: 
the  universe  with  all  that  therein  is,  not  excepting 
mankind  and  civilization,  was  naturally  evolved  out 
of  a  self-existing  matter  by  a  self-existing  force  co- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        105 

operating  by  evolutionary  motions  in  accordance  with 
the  necessity  of  their  nature. 

2.  The  science  of  biology,  physiology  and  embry- 
ology teach  that  the  representation  of  the  traditional, 
supernaturalistic  interpretation  of  Christianity  to  the 
effect  that  man  and  woman  are  unique  beings,  who 
have  supematurally  derived  their  physical  form,  vital 
and  psychical  potentialities  directly  from  a  conscious, 
personal  creator  with  whom  are  their  natural  affilia- 
tions, is  not  true,  and  therefore  can  be  no  part  of  any 
gospel ;  for,  according  to  the  teaching  of  these  three 
sciences,  the  truth  is:  man  and  woman  as  to  their 
whole  beings  (body  and  mind,  life  and  soul)  were 
naturally  evolved  from  pre-existing  animal  life,  not 
supematurally  created  respectively  out  of  the  dust 
and  a  rib,  so  that  they  owe  their  existence  to,  and 
natural  affinities  with,  a  terrestrial  and  bestial  par- 
entage, not  a  celestial  and  divine  one. 

3.  The  sciences  of  anthropology,  sociology  and 
comparative  interpretations  of  religion  teach  that  the 
representation  of  the  traditional,  supernaturalistic  in- 
terpretation of  Christianity  to  the  effect  that  man  and 
woman  were  supematurally  created  in  the  image  and 
likeness  of  a  conscious,  personal  god,  sinless  and 
deathless  beings  with  ideal  environments,  but  that 
they  fell  from  this  happy  estate,  through  a  serpentine 
incarnation  of  a  supvernatural  devil,  and  are  being  re- 
stored to  it,  through  a  |iuman  incarnation  of  a  super- 
natural saviour,  is  not  true,  and  therefore  can  be  no 
part  of  any  gospel;  for,  according  to  the  teaching  of 
these  three  sciences,  the  truth  is:  during  many  ages 
man  and  woman,  in  both  appearance  and  predilection, 
were  much  more  animal  than  divine  and  that  grad- 


106     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

ually  without  any  supernatural  assistance,  they  have 
worked  themselves  out  of  a  state  of  bestial  barbarism 
into  one  of  human  civilization. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  the  representations  of 
both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  concerning  the 
origin  and  history  of  man  are  largely  fictitious  im- 
positions, not  historical  compositions,  so  much  so, 
that  no  confidence  can  safely  be  reposed  in  any  of 
them. 

There  is  no  rational  doubt  about  the  fictitious  char- 
acter of  the  divine  Jesus.  Some  think  that  the  human 
Jesus  may  have  been  an  historical  personage;  but, 
none  among  outstanding  scholars  believes  that  we 
have  a  connected  account  of  'his  life  and  work,  and 
most  of  them  insist  that  we  do  not  certainly  know  any 
saying  or  doing  of  his. 

No  religious  doctrine  or  institution  of  which  we 
have  an  account  in  the  New  Testament  is  peculiar  to 
Christianity,  and  this  is  equally  true  of  moral  pre- 
cepts. 

The  gods  of  all  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations 
of  religion  are  so  many  creations  of  the  dominant  or 
master  class,  and  their  revelations  were  put  into  their 
mouths  by  their  makers  for  the  purpose  of  keeping 
the  slave  class  ignorant  and  contented. 

Orthodox  Christians  earnestly  contend  that  this 
naturalistic  doctrine  makes  for  immorality.  Heretical 
socialists  rationally  answer  that  the  life  which  men,' 
women  and  children  live  with  reference  to  their  ter- 
restrial influence,  rather  than  to  celestial  rewards  or 
punishments,  is  the  only  one  which  is  lived  to  any 
moral  purpose. 

According  to  socialism,  morality,  religion  and  Chris- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        107 

tianity  are  but  synonyms  of  one  and  the  same  reality, 
which  consists  wholly  in  the  desire  and  effort  of  a 
man  to  learn  the  laws  or  doings  of  nature,  and  to  con- 
form his  thoughts,  deeds  and  words  to  them,  in  order 
to  make  his  present  life  on  earth,  and  that  of  others,  as 
long  and  happy  as  possible,  and  not  at  all  in  a  desire 
and  effort  to  learn  what  the  will  of  a  conscious,  per- 
sonal god  is  and  to  conform  to  it,  in  order  to  avoid  a 
hell  and  gain  a  heaven  for  a  future  life  in 'the  sky. 

O  threats  of  Hell  and  Hopes  of  Paradise! 
One  thing  at  least  is  certain — This  Life  flies ; 
One  thing  is  certain  and  the  rest  is  Lies ; 
The  Flower  that  once  has  blown  forever  dies. 

— Omar. 

If  you  object  that  this  is  a  representation  of  a  scep- 
tical poet,  I  reply  that  it  is  in  alignment  with  a  repre- 
sentation of  a  scriptural  preacher: 

For  that  which  befalleth  the  sons  of  men  befalleth 

beasts ; 
Even  one  thing  befalleth  them ; 
As  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other ; 
Yea,  they  have  all  one  breath ; 
So  that  a  man  hath  no  pre-eminence  above  a  beast ; 
For  all  is  vanity. 
All  go  unto  one  place; 
All  are  of  the  dust. 
And  all  turn  to  dust  again. 

—Bible. 

Darwin  showed  that  each  man  in  his  physical  de- 
velopment, from  the  embryonic  cell  to  birth  passes 
through,  by  short  cuts,  the  different  forms  of  life  from 
say,  the  worm,  fish  and  lemur  with  all  that  went  be- 


1 08     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

fore,  intervened  between  and  followed  after,  and  Ro- 
manes showed  that  this  is  as  true  of  the  mind  as  of 
the  body;  that,  in  fact,  all  the  representatives  of  the 
animal  kingdom  are  physically  and  psychically  re- 
lated, and,  therefore,  on  the  same  level  as  to  their 
origin  and  destiny. 

In  his  illuminating  book  entitled,  "The  Universal 
Kinship,"  Professor  Moore  says: 

The  embryonic  development  of  a  human  being  is  not 
different  from  the  embryonic  development  of  any  other 
animal.  Every  human  being  at  the  beginning  of  his  or- 
ganic existence  is  a  protozoan,  about  1-135  inch  in  diam- 
eter ;  at  another  stage  of  development  he  is  a  tiny  sac- 
shaped  mass  of  cells  without  blood  or  nerves,  the  gas- 
trula;  at  another  stage  he  is  a  worm,  with  a  pulsating 
tube  instead  of  a  heart,  and  without  a  head,  neck,  spinal 
column,  or  limbs ;  at  another  stage  he  has  as  a  backbone, 
a  rod  of  cartilage  extending  along  the  back,  and  a  faint 
nerve  cord,  as  in  the  amphioxus,  the  lowest  of  the  ver- 
tebrates ;  at  another  stage  he  is  a  fish  with  a  two-cham- 
bered heart,  mesonephric  kidneys,  and  gill-slits,  with  gill 
arteries  leading  to  them,  just  as  in  fishes;  at  another 
stage  he  is  a  reptile  with  a  three-chambered  heart,  and 
voiding  his  excreta  through  a  cloaca  like  other  reptiles ; 
and  finally,  when  he  enters  upon  post-natal  sins  and 
actualities,  he  is  a'sprawling,  squalling,  unreasoning  quad- 
ruped. The  human  larva  from  the  fifth  to  the  seventh 
month  of  development  is  covered  with  a  thick  growth 
of  hair  and  has  a  true  caudal  (tail)  appendage,  like  the 
monkey.  At  this  stage  the  embryo  has  in  all  thirty- 
eight  vertebrae,  nine  of  which  are  caudal,  and  the  great 
toe  extends  at  right  angles  to  the  other  toes,  and  is  not 
longer  than  the  other  toes,  but  shorter,  as  in  the  ape. 

Surely  no  argument  is  needed  to  convince  you  that 
Darwinism  coffrdborates  the  representation  of  our 
ancient  heretical  poet  and  scriptural  preacher  concern- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        »09 

ing  a  life  beyond  the  grave  rather  than  the  representa- 
tions of  modern  orthodox  theologians. 

Strange,  is  it  not?  that  of  the  myriads  who 
Before  us  pass'd  the  door  of  Darkness  through, 
Not  one  returns  to  tell  us  of  the  Road, 
Which  to  discover  we  must  travel,  too. 

— Omar. 


III. 

In  history,  slavery  stands  out  as  a  huge  mountain 
range  traversing  the  whole  of  a  continent.  During 
long  ages  it  was  supposed  that  these  phenomena  of 
the  human  and  physical  worlds  were  due  to  the  will 
of  a  god  (Jesus,  Jehovah,  Allah  or  Buddha)  but  the 
vanguard  of  humanity  has  now  reached  a  viewpoint 
from  which  it  sees  that  both  are  alike  due  to  a  law, 
that^  law  is  what  nature  does,  not  what  a  god  has 
willed,  and  that  a  system  of  slavery  and  a  range  of 
mountains  are  due  to  the  same  law. 

The  matter-force  law  is  everywhere  the  same,  and 
it  is  as  omnipotent  and  immutable  in  a  social  order  as 
in  a  solar  system. 

The  very  law  that  moulds  a  tear. 
And  bids  it  trickle  from  its  source, 
That  law  preserves  the  earth  a  sphere, 
And  guides  the  planets  in  their  course. 

— Anonymous. 

Most  of  the  time,  and  especially  just  now,  our  world 
is  very  full  of  tears,  almost  as  much  so  as  space  is 
full  of  spheres,  but  there  would  not  be  half  so  many 


110     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

tears  at  any  time,  if  the.  laws  of  states  were  so  many 
correct  interpretations  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

In  every  age,  nearly  all  the  hot  tears  which  deluge 
the  world  flow,  like  streams  of  springs,  from  their 
deep  sources  as  the  result  of  unnecessary  suffering  by 
grinding  poverty,  by  hopeless  slavery,  by  avoidable 
diseases  and  by  premature  deaths ;  and  by  far  the  most 
of  these  and  of  all  sufferings  may  be  traced  to  man- 
made  laws  which  not  only  have  no  correspondence 
with  those  of  nature  but  are  contrary  to  them — ^laws 
of  which  both  the  civil  codes  and  religious  bibles  are 
too  full. 

You  will  agree  with  me  that  society  should  punish 
none  of  its  members  by  the  least  censure,  the  slightest 
fine  or  shortest  imprisonment,  not  to  speak  of  death, 
except  on  the  basis  of  justice.  So  far,  and  it  is  a 
long  way,  we  certainly  walk  together.  We  part  com- 
pany, if  at  all,  on  the  question  as  to  the  basis  of 
justice,  but  come  together  again  in  the  conclusioif  that 
it  is  right,  not  might. 

"What,  then,  is  this  right?  If  you  answer:  the  law 
of  the  state  as  it  is  interpreted  by  a  competent  court, 
I  reply:  no  legal  enactment,  and  so,  of  course,  no  in- 
terpretation of  one,  can  really  constitute  a  right,  un- 
less it  is  an  embodiment  of  a  truth  containing  an  in- 
dispensable stone  in  the  foundation  which  is  neces- 
sary to  the  superstructure  of  the  ideal  civilization, 
under  the  roof  of  which  every  man,  woman  and  child 
shall  possess  the  greatest  of  possible  opportunities  to 
make  life  for  self  as  long  and  happy  as  it  can  be,  and 
to  help  others  in  an  ever  widening  circle  to  do  this  fo* 
themselves. 

Laws  are  not  made.     All   social  laws   (domestic. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        1 1 1 

civil,  commercial,  yes,  even  the  moral  and  religious 
ones)  are  matter-force  realities,  as  much  so  as  is  any- 
other  among  all  the  physical  or  psychical  realities  en- 
tering into  the  constitution  of  the  universe;  which 
realities  are  but  the  expressions  of  the  processes  nec- 
essarily resulting  from  the  necessary  co-existence  and 
co-operation  of  matter  and  force ;  therefore,  laws 
are  so  many  eternal  necessities  and,  this  being  the 
case,  it  is  not  possible  that  men  in  states  or  churches 
should  make  them,  no,  not  even  gods  in  heavens. 

Man  would,  then  have  progressed  much  further 
with  the  superstructure  of  an  ideal  civilization,  if  only 
in  his  efforts  to  rightly  regulate  his  life,  he  had  hap- 
pily searched  out  the  laws  of  nature  as  they  are  re- 
vealed thfough  its  phenomena  and  interpreted  by  ex- 
perience and  reason,  instead  of  looking  for  direction 
to  the  laws  of  the  gods  (Jehovah,  Allah,  Buddha  or 
even  Jesus)  as  they  are  revealed  through  prophets  and 
interpreted  by  kings  or  presidents,  by  priests  or 
preachers  and  by  other  "powers  that  be  of  God"  in 
states  and  churches — institutions  which  exist  in  the 
interest  of  the  capitalist  class  and  against  that  of  the 
labor  class.  The  world  owes  by  far  the  greater  part 
of  its  most  poignant  sufferings  to  this  fatal  mistake  of 
looking  to  gods  in  heaven  and  their  representatives 
on  earth  for  direction  instead  of  to  nature  and  reason. 

Life  in  the  physical  realm  is  dependent  upon  living 
in  harmony  with  the  matter-force  law.  The  repre- 
sentative of  any  form  of  life  (mineral,  vegetable,  ani- 
mal, human)  which  either  through  ignorance,  accident 
or  willfulness  does  not  conform  to  it,  is  destroyed  or 
at  least  injured. 

Life,  in  the  moral  part  of  the  psychical  realm,  con- 


1 12     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEWPOINTS 

sists  in  a  disposition  and  effort  to  learn  the  matter- 
force  law,  and  to  fulfill  in  thought,  word  and  deed  the 
individual  obligations  to  self  and  the  social  obligations 
interpreted  by  a  man  for  himself. 

Religion  and  Christianity  are  but  wider  extensions 
of  one  and  the  same  great  all-inclusive  virtue,  mor- 
ality, without  which  human  life  would  not  be  worth 
living,  indeed  not  even  a  possibility,  for  without  mor- 
ality a  man  is  a  beast,  not  a  human. 

Morality  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  Yet, 
paradoxical  as  the  representation  may  seem,  there  is 
one  greater  thing,  freedom — the  liberty  to  learn,  think, 
speak,  teach  and  act  in  accordance  with  one's  own 
convictions  as  to  what  is  the  law  and  as  to  what  are 
its  requirements.  Without  this  liberty  ther6  could  be 
no  morality,  and  therefore,  freedom  is  greater  than  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  world,  morality. 

But  liberty,  the  greatest  and  most  indispensable  ne- 
cessity to  morality,  religion  and  Christianity,  indeed, 
to  the  existence  of  a  human  being,  is  manifestly  im- 
possible on  the  theory  that  man  must  be  guided  by 
the  will  of  a  conscious,  personal  God  in  the  sky,  as  it 
is  interpreted  by  the  kings  and  priests,  presidents  and 
preachers  on  earth. 

You  will  note  that  I  am  not  contending  for  the  lib- 
erty to  live  without  reference  to  an  external  authority. 
If  this  were  my  contention  you  would  rightly  insist 
(as  some  among  my  friends  do)  that  I  am  an  atheist 
in  religion  and  a  rebel  in  politics ;  but  I  am  neither, 
for  I  recognize  the  fact  that  I  must  live  with 
reference  to  the  existence  of  an  external  authority, 
matter-force  law,  and  there  is  no  other,  upK)n  which 
anything  good  in  religion  or  politics  is  dependent. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        113 

No  one  is  an  atheist  in  religion,  a  rebel  in  poli- 
tics or  anything  bad,  who,  in  the  physical  realm  of 
life  tries  to  live  with  reference  to  the  law  of  nature, 
and  who,  in  the  moral  realm  of  life,  tries  to  live  with 
reference  to  a  truth  which  is  that  law  humanely  m- 
terpreted  by  himself  in  accordance  with  his  own  expe- 
rience, observation,  investigation  and  reason.  In  the 
nature  of  things,  the  interpretation  cannot  be  by 
some  one  else,  because  one  man  cannot  live  the  moral 
life  on  another's  ideals  any  more  than  he  can  live  the 
physical  life  on  another's  meals. 

Since  this  is  the  case,  it  follows  that  the  whole  con- 
ception of  a  law  which  is  willed  by  a  god  and  revealed 
or  formulated  by  his  representatives  (prophets,  kmgs, 
priests,  legislators)  to  which  a  man  must  have  refer- 
ence, if  he  would  live  the  moral  life,  is,  at  best,  a 
harmless  fiction  and  at  worst  a  hurtful  superstition. 

There  is  no  one  (man  or  god)  with  whom  people 
can  stand  in  the  moral  realm  except  themselves  alone, 
and  if  they  are  not  within  this  realm,  they  are  not  men 
and  women. 

Manhood  is  dependent  upon  standing  alone  with 
matter-force  nature  and  with  human  reason,  and  it  is 
manhood  which  really  counts  everywhere  in  the  social 
realm,  for  without  manhood  one  is  nothing  anywhere 
in  that  realm. 

Nature  is  my  god.  The  gods  of  the  several  super- 
naturalistic  interpretations  of  religion  (Jesus,  Jeho- 
vah, Allah,  Buddha)  are  so  many  symbols  of  this  di- 
,  vinity.  The  words  of  this  god  are  the  facts  of  nature. 
My  religion  and  politics,  worship  and  patriotism  con- 
sist in  a  desire  and  eflfort  to  discover  these  facts  and 
to  interpret  and  live  them  humanely. 


1 14     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

My  god,  Nature,  is  a  triune  divinity — matter  being- 
the  father,  force  the  son,  and  law  the  spirit. 

Nature  is  a  symbol  of  the  sum  of  the  matter-force- 
law  phenomena  of  which  the  universe  is  constituted. 
Man  with  his  barbarism  and  civilization  is  but  one 
among  such  phenomena,  on  a  level  with  the  rest,  as 
to  his  beginning  and  ending,  and  as  to  the  dependence 
of  his  life  and  its  fullness  upon  conformity  to  the  mat- 
ter-force law,  without  necessary  or,  indeed,  possible 
reference  to  any  divine-human  system  of  laws  as  set 
forth  by  a  catholic  or  protestant  church,  or  by  an  im- 
perialistic or  democratic  state. 

Unless  states  and  churches  persuade,  encourage  and 
help  man  to  more  fully  discover,  more  correctly  inter- 
pret and  more  perfectly  live  the  matter-force  law  they 
are  worthless;  and  indeed  worse,  if  in  the  long  run 
and  on  the  whole  they  hinder  him;  and  undoubtedly 
they  have  done  this  in  the  case  of  the  slave  class — a 
class  which,  ever  since  the  rise  of  private  property  in 
the  means  of  producing  the  necessities  of  life,  has 
comprehended  the  vast  majority  of  the  human  race. 

Whether  then  man  is  barbarous  or  civilized  is  really 
and  truly,  wholly  and  entirely  a  question  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  and  conformity  to  the  matter-force  law,  that  is, 
of  whether  or  not  the  articles  of  his  religious  creed  and 
political  code  are  so  many  ideal  embodiments  and 
practical  interpretations  of  facts  or  realities  as  they 
are  revealed  by  the  doings  of  my  god,  Nature. 

There  is  no  other  creed,  belief  in  the  articles  of 
which,  and  there  is  no  other  code,  obedience  to  the 
articles  of  which,  will  advance  mankind,  individually 
or  collectively,  so  much  as  one  step  in  the  long,  rug- 
ged and  steep  way  towards  the  goal  of  a  perfect  civil- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        115 

ization— a  civilization  which  will  secure  to  every  man, 
woman  and  child  the  greatest  of  possible  opportunities 
to  make  the  most  of  life  that  is  within  the  range  of 
possibilities. 

My  god.  Nature  (the  triune  divinity,  matter-force- 
motion)  the  doings  of  which  god  are  so  many  words 
of  the  only  gospel  upon  which  the  salvation  of  the 
world  is  to  any  degree  dependent,  is  an  impersonal, 
unconscious,  non-moral  being. 

For  me,  this  god,  Nature,  rises  into  personality,  con- 
sciousness and  morality  in  myself,  and  in  no  other 
does  nature  do  this  for  me,  though  what  is  true  of 
me  is  of  course  equally  so  of  every  representative  of 
mankind. 

Jesus  (either  as  an  historical  or  dramatic  personage, 
'and  it  does  not  matter  which  he  was)  said,  "I  and  my 
Father  (God)  are  one,"  and  in  saying  this  he  gave  ex- 
pression in  one  form  to  the  most  revolutionary  and 
salutary  of  all  truths.  The  other  form  of  the  same 
truth  as  taught  by  Darwin  and  Marx  is:  man  has  all 
the  potentialities  of  his  own  life  within  himself.  Every 
representative  of  the  human  race  can,  and  should, 
say  with  Jesus,  "I  and  my  Father,  God,  are  one." 

Stop,  man!  where  dost  thou  run? 
Heav'n  lies  within  thy  heart, 
If  thou  seek'st  God  elsewhere 
Misled,  in  truth,  thou  art. 

— i'ftigelus  Silensius. 

This  truth  constitutes  the  most  ennobling  and  in- 
spiring part  of  man's  knowledge,  and  it  was  naturally 
discovered  by  him,  not  supernaturally  revealed  to  him. 
It  is  the  foundation  of  Marxian  socialism  or  commun- 
ism and  the  justification  of  optimism. 


116     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

The  world  moves,  with  all  that  therein  is.  The 
vanguard  of  mankind  is  moving  to  a  viewpoint  from 
which  rapidly  increasing  numbers  will  see  that  a 
revolution  which  is  necessary  on  the  part  of  a  slave  to 
free  himself  from  a  master  is  not  only  justified  but  re- 
quired by  the  great,  first  law  of  the  biological  realm, 
the  law  of  self-preservation — a  nature-made  law  on 
behalf  of  freedom.  This  nature-made  law  will  ulti- 
mately nullify  all  class  laws,  every  law  which  is  in 
favor  of  the  enslaving  capitalist  class  and  against  the 
enslaved  labor  class.  • 

Every  state  with  its  executive,  legislative,  judiciary, 
military  and  educative  systems  is  founded  on  capital- 
ism. Since  this  is  the  case  and  since  human  nature 
is  what  it  is,  all  political  institutions,  the  American 
with  the  rest,  are  of  the  capitalist,  by  the  capitalist, " 
for  the  capitalist,  and  each  to  the  end  that  the  capi- 
talist may  keep  the  laborer  in  poverty  and  slavery. 

Every  modern  church  with  its  ministry,  bible,  creed, 
heaven  and  hell  is  fqunded  on  capitalism.  Since  this 
is  the  case,  and  since  human  nature  is  what  it  is,  all  re- 
ligious institutions,  the  Christian  with  the  rest,  are  of 
the  capitalist,  by  the  capitalist,  for  the  capitalist  and 
each  to  the  end  that  the  capitalist  may  keep  the 
laborer  in  ignorance  and  slavery. 

Whether  Jesus  was  an  historical  or  a  dramatic  per- 
son, th^  morality  involved  in  his  trial,  condemnation 
and  execution  is  the  saftie.  Assuming  historicity, 
he  was  put  to  death  by  Pilate  because  a  class  of  the 
people  said :  We  have  a  law  and  by  it,  according  to  its 
official  interpretation,  he  should  die.  The  Governor, 
finding  that  the  legal  enactment  and  the  judicial  deci- 
sion were  in  accordance  with  the  representation  of  the 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM         1 1 7 

Jews,  turned  Jesus  over  to  the  executioners  for  cruci- 
fixion, and  the  world  condemns  him  because  he  knew 
that  the  law  was  the  embodiment  of  a  fiction  instead  of 
a  truth,  because  he  interpreted  it  in  the  interest  of  a 
sect  instead  of  a  people,  and  because  he  basely  acted 
with  reference  to  his  own  political  interests  without 
regard  to  justice  for  an  heroic  but  helpless  champion 
of  slaves  in  their  struggle  against  the  masters.* 

Capitalism  is  the  outstanding,  overshadowing  im- 
perialist, the  father  of  all  the  kaisers  by  which  the 
world  has  been  cursed,  not  only  of  the  terrestrial  ones 
such  as  Wilhelm  II,  Nicholas  II.  Woodrow  I.  Warren 
Gamaliel  I,  but  also  of  the  celestial  kaisers  such  as 
Jehovah,  Allah,  Buddha. 

The  occupants  of  regal  thrones  have  no  more  re- 
sponsibility for  the  existence  of  imperialism  than  those 
of  presidential  chairs,  nor  they  any  more  than  I,  and 
I  have  none.  The  truth  is  that  the  responsibility  for 
this  blight  of  all  the  ages  is  now  at  last,  if  indeed  it  has 
not  always  been,  wholly  with  the  representatives  of 
the  working  class.  They  have  the  great  majority  in 
numbers  and  all  of  the  revolutionary  incentives  and 
power;  therefore  they,  and  only  they  can  do  away 
with  imperialism,  and  they  can  rid  themselves  of  it 
whenever  they  choose.  Prince  Kropotkin,  the  an- 
archist teacher,  a  great  soul,  would  agree  to  this  rep- 
resentation, for  he  says: 


♦This  paragraph  was  originally  followed  by  one  on  "philo- 
sophical anarchism;"  but.  having  become  convinced  that  the 
phrase  is  used  only  by  friends  who  fear  to  come  into  the  light 
and  enemies  who  wish  to  cast  a  shadow,  it  was  omitted. 
Anarchism  is  a  progress  rather  than  a  theory,  as  much  so  as 
capitalism  and  socialism.     See  foot-note  page  i55-— W.  M.  B. 


118     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

The  working  men  of  the  civilized  world  and  their 
friends  in  the  other  classes  ought  to  induce  their  Gov- 
ernments entirely  to  abandon  the  idea  of  armed  inter- 
vention in  the  affairs  of  Russia — whether  open  or  dis- 
guised, whether  military  or  in  the  shape  of  subventions 
to  different  nations. 

Russia  is  now  living  through  a  revolution  of  the  same 
depth  and  the  same  importance  as  the  British  nation 
underwent  in  1639-1648  and  France  in  1789-1794;  and 
every  nation  should  refuse  to  play  the  shameful  part  that 
Great  Britain,  Prussia,  Austria  and  Russia  played  during 
the  French  Revolution. 

Since  death  ends  all  of  consciousness,  the  most  in- 
human of  all  inhumanities  and  the  most  immoral  of 
all  immoralities  is  the  shortening  of  human  life;  and 
next  to  it  is  the  diminishing  of  its  happiness. 

War  s'hortens  many  lives  and  fills  more  with  mis- 
ery; hfence  its  essential  inhumanity  and  immorality. 

A  large  part  of  the  world  has  just  passed  through 
the  furnace  of  war — a  war  between  the  German  and 
English  nations  with  their  respective  national  allies- 
All  international  wars  are  contests  for  supremacy  in 
the  markets  of  the  world,  or  at  least  for  advantage  in 
some  among  them.    This  one  was  no  exception. 

The  furnace  of  this  war  was  seven  times  larger  and 
seven  times  hotter  than  any  other  has  been.  Accord- 
ing to  the  latest  estimates  (September,  1920)-  its  fi^erce 
flames  directly  and  indirectly  killed  thirty  million 
young  men  and  wrecked  totally  twice  and  partially 
thrice  as  many  more. 

Yet  the  fire  by  which  the  world  upon  the  whole  and 
in  the  long  run  suffers  most  is  not  the  intermittent, 
flaming  one  of  the  hell  of  international  war,  which  is 
always  kindled  and  sustained  by  the  capitalists  ©f  the 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        119 

belligerent  nations  for  the  purpose  solely  of  securing 
commercial  advantages  over  each  other ;  but  the  great- 
er suffering  is  by  the  permanent,  smoking  fire  of  the 
hell  of  the  inter-class  war  which  is  always  kindled  and 
sustained  by  the  capitalist  class  in  each  nation  for  the 
purpose  solely  of  robbing  the  labor  class  of  the  fruit 
of  its  toil. 

These  national  and  class  wars  (hells,  flaming  and 
smouldering)  are  due  to  the  same  matter-force  law, 
the  law  of  self-preservation,  and,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  this  law  is  equally  operative  on  both  sides  in 
each  war. 

Both  hells  exist  as  the  result  of  the  working  out  of 
the  same  law  of  animal  preservation  by  competition — 
the  law  of  capitalism,  and  both  hells  will  be  done  away 
with  as  the  result  of  the  working  out  of  the  same  law 
of  human  preservation  by  co-operation — the  law  of  so- 
cialism. 

One  proof  of  the  rightness  of  the  co-operative  sys- 
tem is  the  fact  that  it  necessarily  operates  for  the 
whole  people  and  not  for  a  class,  whereas  the  com- 
petitive system  as  necessarily  operates  for  a  class  and 
not  for  the  whole  people. 

Still  another  proof,  and  it  is  in  itself  almost  if  not 
quite  conclusive,  of  the  rightness  of  the  co-operative 
system  is  the  fact  that  its  competitive  rival  breaks 
down  in  every  great  emergency.  It  broke  down  com- 
pletely in  all  the  belligerent  countries  (in  none  more 
than  the  United  States)  immediately  upon  their  en- 
trance into  the  world  war.  Our  government  was 
obliged  to  assume  control  of  the  railroads,  coal  mines 
and  food  products. 

If  a  class  government,  such  as  ours  is,  can  provide 


120     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

during  a  war  by  the  co-operative  system,  and  only  by 
it,  for  the  wants  of  a  country,  and  better,  too,  than 
during  the  time  of  peace,  what  may  we  expect  in  the 
way  of  plenty,  comfort  and  leisure,  when  under  the 
classless  administration  there  shall  be  no  more  war 
with  its  wholesale  waste,  and  when  there  shall  be  one 
vast  army  of  producers? 

All  the  days  which  the  fifty  millions  of  soldiers 
spent  in  idleness  will  then  be  so  many  holidays  for 
toilers  who  are  in  need  of  them  for  rest  and  self-im- 
provement ;  and  every  dollar  which  is  now  wasted  will 
then  be  two  dollars  saved,  so  that  the  pecuniary  pros- 
perity of  war  times  will  be  increased,  rather  than 
diminished,  and  made  continuous.  Under  a  classless 
administration  the  world  would  soon  become  com- 
paratively rich  and  happy.* 

Representatives  of  the  capitalist  class  are  trying  to 
create  the  impression  that  the  co-operative  system 
which  our  government  temporarily  established  as  a 
military  necessity  is  socialism,  and  that  the  labor  class 
should  seek  no  more  than  its  restoration  and  con- 
tinuance; but  this  system  is  the  same  old  wolf  in 
sheep's  clothing. 

The  rickety  house  in  which  we  are  living  is  a  com- 
petitive structure  and  it  cannot  be  made  into  a  co- 


*Tlie  diflference  between  a  political  republic,  such  as  America 
has  developed,  and  an  industrial  republic,  such  as  Russia  is 
developing,  is  that  the  administrators  of  the  former  are  elected 
from  the  geographical  divisions  and  those  of  the  latter  from  the 
productive  divisions  into  which  the  population  is  divided. 

If  we  liken  states  to  fruit  trees,  the  American  tree  may  be 
said  to  have  been  evolutionized  for  the  purpose  of  producing 
the  fruit  of  commodities  for  the  profit  of  the  owning  class,  and 
the  Russian,  the  fruit  of  commodities  for  the  use  of  the  working 
class.— W.  M.  B. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        121 

operative  one,  at  least  not  upon  its  present  founda- 
tion, the  sand  of  capitalistic  classism.  Industrialism 
must  take  it  down  and  rebuild  it  upon  the  rock  of 
classless  labor.  Neither  this  demolition  nor  this  re- 
construction constitutes  any  part  of  the  government 
program.  Its  socialism  is  a  mirage,  not  a  reality,  and 
the  matter-force  law^  renders  it  necessarily  so. 

Marxian  socialism  is  simplicity  itself.  It  requires 
only  three  conditions,  each  of  w^hich  is  perfectly  in- 
telligible ;  but  no  one  of  them  ever  has  existed  or  could 
exist  under  any  capitalist  government,  because  all 
such  governments  are  organized  in  the  interest  of  para- 
sitic profiteers,  not  productive  laborers,  in  the  interest 
of  the  rights  to  property,  not  the  rights  of  man.  The 
three  indispensable  yet  simple  pre-requisites  to  this 
real  socialism  or  communism  are :  / 

First,  that  the  people  within  a  municipality,  either 
town  or  city,  own  and  control  the  utilities  within  the 
area  occupied  by  that  municipality,  which  have  to  do 
with  the  immediate  comfort  of  the  people  who  live  there. 
.  Second,  that  the  people  in  each  state  own  and  con- 
trol the  utilities  that  come  in  contact  with  the  people 
on  a  state-wide  scale. 

Third,  that  the  people  within  the  nation  own  collec- 
tively and  control  democratically  the  utilities  which  af- 
fect them  on  a  national  scale. 

Should  we  desire  to  go  into  more  detail,  we  might 
say  that  the  things  necessary  to  the  individual  be  owned 
and  controlled  by  the  individual,  that  the  home  be  con- 
trolled by  the  family,  and  so  on.  To  go  into  the  ques- 
tion on  an  international  scale  we  might  also  add  that 
utilities  mutually  necessary  to  all  the  nations  be  owned 
by  the  nations,  as  the  Panama  Canal,  for  instance. — 
Higgins. 


122     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Prince  Kropotkin,  though  not  a  bolshevik,  says  ap- 
provingly of  the  Russian  revolution  that  it  is  trying  to 
build  up  a  society  where  the  whole  produce  of  the 
joint  efforts  of  labor  by  technical  skill  and  scientific 
knowledge  should  go  entirely  to  the  commonwealth; 
and  he  declares  that  for  the  unavoidable  reconstruc- 
tion of  society,  by  pacific  or  any  other  revolutionary 
means,  there  must  be  a  union  of  all  the  trade  unions  of 
the  world  to  free  the  production  oT  the  world  from 
its  present  enslavement  to  capitalism. 

Higgins  and  Kropotkin  have  here  put  co-operative 
socialism  or  communism  in  a  nutshell  both  as  to  its 
aim  and  program. 

The  law  of  self-preservation  is  ever  the  same,  but 
whether  its  salvation  is  for  a  part  of  the  people  by 
competition — capitalist  salvation,  or  for  the  whole 
people  by  co-oi>eration — socialist  salvation,  depends 
upon  whether  this  law  rides  or  is  ridden. 

So  long  as  the  law  of  self-preservation  was  supposed 
to  be  the  will  of  a  conscious,  personal  god  whose 
earthly  representatives  were  kings  and  priests  or 
presidents  and  preachers,  the  law  did  the  riding  with- 
in the  large  domain  of  animal  competition — the  do- 
main of  capitalism.  War  is  the  normal,  indeed  neces- 
sary evil  of  this  domain,  and  hence  the  world  must 
have  wars  so  long  as  it  remains  within  it,  and  it  will 
remain  there  so  long  as  it  has  celestial  divinities,  with 
terrestrial  representatives  in  states  and  churches,  for 
its  governors. 

Now  that  the  law  is  known  to  be  a  matter-force 
necessity,  not  a  divine  decree,  the  time  may  ration- 
ally be  hoped  for  when  the  people  will  do  the  riding 
within  the  small  domain  of  human  co-operation — the 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        123 

domain  of  socialism.  Peace  is  the  normal,  indeed 
necessary,  state  of  this  domain,  and  hence  the  world 
must  cease  to  have  war  when  it  enters  it,  and  is  gov- 
erned by  itself  instead  of  by  a  god  and  the  powers  of 
state  and  church  alleged  to  have  been  ordained  by 
him. 

Capital  punishment  should  not  be  administered,  if  at 
all,  except  to  a  murderer  whose  guilt  has  been. estab- 
lished to  the  satisfaction  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
people  in  the  community  to  which  he  belongs,  and 
never  in  the  case  of  a  suspected  murderer  of  whom  this 
is  not  true. 

If  William  II  were  really  the  devil  behind  the  Eu- 
ropean war  by  which  ten  million  of  the  young  men 
of  the  world  have  lost  their  lives,  and  if  Thomas 
Mooney  were  really  the  devil  behind  the  San  Francis- 
co explosion  by  which  ten  citizens  of  California  lost 
their  lives,  their  punishment  by  death  might  be  urged 
with  much  show  of  reason  as  a  social  necessity.  But 
if  both  were  hung  on  the  same  gallows  the  world 
would  go  on  suffering  by  the  ever  recurring  and  close- 
ly related  misfortunes  of  war  and  riot  as  \{  nothing 
had  happened.  The  real  devil  behind  all  wars  and 
riots  is  the  capitalist  system.  There  will  never  be  an 
end  of  wars  and  riots  until  this  devil  is  overthrown. 

The  so-called  Kaiser-war  and  the  so-called  Mooney- 
riot  are  on  the  same  footing,  both  having  the  character 
of  an  insurrection  and  both  having  the  aim  of  self- 
preservation.  The  insurrection  of  the  Kaiser  was  a  riot 
on  behalf  of  the  capitalist  class  of  Germany  and  for  the 
purpose  of  protecting  it  against  the  capitalist  class  of 
England.  The  insurrection  of  Mooney  (assuming  his 
guilt,  merely  for  illustration)  was  a  riot  on  behalf  of 


124     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

the  labor  class  of  California  and  for  the  purpose  of 
protecting  it  against  the  capitalist  class  of  that  state. 

Incidentally,  both  riots  have  secondary  aims  of 
world-wide  extent.  The  Kaiser  had  two  of  these:  to 
overthrow  the  commercial  supremacy  of  England  that 
Germany  might  have  it,  and  to  overthrow  industrial 
republicanism  (socialism)  everywhere.  Mooney  had 
this:  the  overthrow  of  commercial  imperialism  (cap- 
italism) everywhere. 

As  rioters,  there  is  this  in  common  between  Kaiser 
William  and  Thomas  Mooney,  that  though  moving  in 
opposite  directions,  they  are  nevertheless  carried  by 
the  same  matter- force  law  which  manifests  itself  in 
the  same  riotous  system,  capitalism — a  system  which, 
under  one  form  or  another,  has  ever  produced  inter- 
national wars  and  class  revolutions;  and,  so  long  as 
it  is  allowed  to  exist,  never  will  cease  the  production 
of  them. 

Hence  the  interests  of  the  world  require  not  that 
these  rioters.  Kaiser  William  and  Thomas  Mooney, 
should  be  hung,  but  that  the  capitalist  system,  which 
by  the  operation  of  the  law  of  self-preservation  by 
animal  competitions,  produced  both  of  the  riots  with 
which  they  are  respectively  credited,  should  be  over- 
thrown, by  the  labor  system,  which,  by  the  operation 
of  the  same  law  of  self-preservation  by  human  co- 
operation, will  put  an  end  to  all  bloody  conflicts. 

But  taking  the  popular  view  concerning  the  respon- 
sibility for  this  commercial  war  and  labor  riot,  and  as- 
suming that  they  should  be  charged  respectively  to 
Kaiser  William  and  Thomas  Mooney,  why  should  the 
promoter  of  the  little  riot  die,  or  worse,  suffer  im- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        125 

prisonment  during  life,  and  the  promoter  of  the  big 
war  live  in  freedom?  ' 

Yet,  if  the  Kaiser  were  captured  even  by  England, 
there  is  no  probability  that  he  would  be  turned  over  to 
a  court  constituted  of  representatives  of  the  allied  na- 
tions, tried,  found  guilty  and  put  to  death.  Why  not? 
Because,  like  all  wars,  his  jvar,  no  matter  which  side 
won  the  victory,  has  been  upon  the  whole  or  will  be  in 
the  long  run,  in  the  interest  of  the  capitalists  of  every 
nation  on  both  sides,  at  least  of  the  great  ones. 

If  Kaiser  William  would  not  be  sent  to  the  gallows 
by  such  a  court  why  should  the  court  which  tried 
Thomas  Mooney  be  allowed  to  send  him  to  it ;  and 
especially  why,  since  California  is  part  of  a  republic, 
and  the  Kaiser's  war  was  on  behalf  of  imperialism  and 
X  small  minority,  while  Mooneyes  riot  was  on  behalf  of 
republicanism  and  the  overv\'helming  majority? 

Just  now*  the  human  part  of  the  world  is  especially 
afflicted  by  unnecessary  and  therefore  unjustifiable 
deaths.  The  Governor  of  California  has  the  oppor- 
tunity to  prevent  one  such  death.  I  say  to  him,  do  it. 
In  the  name  of  Justice  and  in  the  name  of  Humanity, 
I  with  millions  of  others  solemnly  call  upon  him  to 
save  Mooney,  the  revolutionist,  as  Pilate,  the  Gover- 
nor of  Judea,  according  to  the  verdict  of  all  right- 
thinking  men  and  women,  should  have  saved  Jesus, 
the  revolutionist. 

IV. 

You  say,  in  effect,  that  we  must  postulate  a  divine 
consciousness  to  account  for  human  consciousness; 
but,  on  your  theory,  how  could  human  consciousness 

♦Written  in   rgiS.— W.  M.   B. 


126     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

come  out  of  a  divine  consciousness;  and,  anyhow, 
contrary  to  your  implication,  we  know  of  no  con- 
sciousness which  has  come,  except  by  inheritance, 
from  another  consciousness,  but  only  of  conscious- 
nesses which  come  from  unconsciousnesses. 

Your  contention,  in  this  connection,  is  to  the  eflfect 
that  nothing  can  come  out  of  nothing,  and  this  is  the 
core  of  a  book,  "A  Short  Apology  for  Being  a  Chris- 
tian in  the  Twentieth  Century,"  by  the  learned  ex- 
President  of  Trinity  College,  Hartford,  Dr.  William- 
son Smith,  with  whom  you  have  had,  I  think,  some 
correspondence. 

This  Apology  was  written  against  a  letter  of  mine 
to  the  House  of  Bishops,  entitled,  "A  Natural  Gospel 
for  a  Scientific  Age,"  which  has  never  seen  the  light, 
partly  because  the  ex-President  convinced  me  that 
if  I  must  give  up  the  orthodox  conception  of  God,  I 
could  not  hold  to  the  one  which  I  had  worked  out  in 
the  letter. 

If  you  have  not  seen  the  ex-President's  book,  you 
will,  I  am  sure,  enjoy  it  more  than  I  did,  but  I  doubt 
whether  you  will  profit  as  much  by  it,  for  it  verges  to- 
wards your  lines  and  away  from  mine ;  and  so  it  set 
me  to  studying  as  it  will  not  you,  with  the  result  of 
rejecting  the  new  conception  of  God  which  I  had 
worked  out  for  myself,  but  with  it  I  threw  over  the 
old  one  and  ceased  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a 
conscious,  personal  divinity.  Of  course,  my  faith  in 
the  existence  of  a  spiritual  world  and  hope  for  a  fu- 
ture life  in  it  went  with  the  God. 

Dr.  Williamson  Smith,  and  you,  are  entirely  correct 
in  the  contention  that  something  cannot  come  out  of 
nothing;  but  I  no  longer  pretend  that  it  can.  apd  I 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        127 

now  see  that  the  stones  which  have  been  thrown  at 
me  by  you  both  and  others  have  come  from  glass 
houses;  for  this  is  really  the  pretension  of  orthodox 
theologians.  They  affirm  that  the  universe  was  cre- 
ated by  God  out  of  nothing,  but  produce  no  scrap  of 
evidence  for  His  existence,  and  even  if  they  could 
prove  that  He  exists,  they  would  have  to  admit  that 
He  came  out  of  nothing,  or  at  least  from  something 
which  did  so. 

It  is,  indeed,  true  that  I  am  unable  to  tell  what  mat- 
ter, force  and  motion  came  from,  or  if  I  agree  with 
most  physicists  that  they  arose  from  ether,  I  cannot 
give  its  derivative;  but,  granting  that  I  am  as  incap- 
able of  proving  their  existence  as  you  are  of  proving 
the  existence  of  the  Christian  trinity,  nevertheless  I 
have  this  immense  advantage  over  you,  that  I  can 
prove  that  everything  both  physical  and  psychical  (in- 
cluding man  and  his  civilization)  entering  into  the 
corfstitution  of  the  universe,  lives,  moves  and  has  its 
being  in  my  divine  trinity — matter,  force  and  motion ; 
whereas  you  cannot  prove  that  anything  is  indebted 
for  what  it  is  to  your  divine  trinity — Father,  Son  and 
Spirit:  therefore  I  insist  that  your  trinity  is  a  sym- 
bol of  mine. 

What  is  true  of  the  Christian  trinity  is  true  of  all 
the  divinities  of  the  supematuralistic  interpretations 
of  religion.  The  Jews  live  with  no  reference  to  the 
Christian  God,  or  at  least  not  with  any  to  his  second 
and  third  persons,  and  neither  Christians  nor  Jews  do 
so  in  the  case  of  either  the  Mohammedan  or  Buddhis- 
tic divinity,  and  so  on,  all  around  the  whole  circle  of 
gods. 

But  no  representative  of  any  god  lives  without  con- 


128     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

stant  reference  to  mine,  of  which  yours  and  all  the 
others  are,  as  I  think,  symbols,  if  they  are  anything 
better  than  fetishes. 

If  you  and  ex-President  Smith  mean  by  your  fun- 
damental contention,  that  a  thing  which  is  essentially 
different  from  that  from  which  it  came  is  an  impos- 
sibility, you  are  certainly  wrong,  for  the  world  is  full 
of  such  things.  In  the  tree  of  life  there  are  millions 
of  examples,  since  (using  language  in  its  general  sig- 
nificance) everything  above  the  amoeba  must  be  re- 
garded as  essentially  different  from  it,  though  all,  in- 
cluding man,  came  out  of  it. 

Going  back  as  far  as  we  safely  can  on  solid  ground, 
we  come  to  the  nebulae  from  which  the  solar  systems 
of  the  universe  have  evolved,  and  surely  a  solar  sys- 
tem is  as  essentially  different  from  the  nebula  as  a 
man  is  from  an  amoeba.  Coming  to  our  earth  when 
its  primeval,  flaming,  swirling  gases  had  been  con- 
densed into  inorganic  matter,  the  protoplasm  which 
is  organic  matter,  arose  from  it,  and  so  something 
which  grows  from  within  out,  comes  from  something 
which  grows  from  without  in. 

The  large  hoofed  horse  came  from  a  small  five-toed 
animal,  not  much  larger  than  a  rabbit.  The  piano 
and  the  gun  are  brother  and  sister,  born  of  the  bow 
and  arrow,  yet  how  different  the  children  from  the 
parent. 

An  infant  is  unconscious  at 'birth  and  what  it  has  of 
consciousness  as  a  child  and  an  adult  is  dependent 
upon  the  development  of  its  body. 

Moreover,  as  the  human  body  is  a  development 
through  animal  bodies,  we  may  logically  conclude  that 
human   consciousness   is   ultimately   dependent   upon 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM         129 

and  inherited  from  animal-consciousness  rather  than 
a  divine  one. 

Jesus  is  represented  as  saying-  that  God  is  a  spirit; 
and  the  fathers  of  the  English  part  of  the  Protestant 
reformation  said  that  there  is  but  one  living  and  true 
God  without  body,  parts  or  passions.  This  is  their 
explanation  of  his  conception  of  God. 

When  the  Jesuine  definition  of  God  and  the  Angli- 
can explanation  of  it  were  framed,  the  divine  Spirit 
was  supposed  to  be  an  objective  personality. 

Modern  psychology  teaches  that  no  spirit,  divine, 
human  or  otherwise,  is  a  personality.  According  to 
this  science,  spirit  and  soul  are  synonyms  for  the 
subjective  content  of  a  conscious  life,  which  content 
consists  of  feelings,  aspirations,  ideals,  convictions  and 
determinations. 

Psychologists  know  of  no  spirit  or  soul  without  a 
body  constituted  of  parts  any  more  than  physicists 
know  of  a  force  without  matter  constituted  of  mole- 
cules, atoms,  electrons  and  ions. 

Gods  represent  the  religious  ideals  of  people  and 
are  symbols  of  what  they  think  they  should  be  as  re- 
ligionists. They  are  symbolic,  emblematic,  parabolic, 
allegoric  devices  of  the  imagination,  and  contain 
nothing  but  the  ideal,  imaginary  things  which  are  put 
into  them  by  people  for  themselves,  and  they  do 
nothing  except  what  the  people  perform  through  them 
in  their  names  for  themselves. 

Matter  and  force  constitute  a  machine,  an  automatic 
one,  which  produces  things,,  everything  which  enters 
into  the  constitution  of  the  cosmos,  by  evolutionary 
processes,  or  rather  all  such  things,  and  there  are  no 


1 30     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

others,  are  the  result  of  one  universal  and  eternal 
process  of  evolution. 

What  is  known  as  nature  is  the  aggregatiqn  of  the 
products  of  this  machine  by  this  process.  The  ma- 
chine is  unconscious  and  its  workings  are  mechanical, 
yet  some  of  its  products  rise  into  self-consciousness 
with  the  power  of  self-determination,  but  both  the 
consciousness  and  the  determination  are  limited.  The 
infinite  consciousness,  personality  and  determination 
which  are  postulated  of  gods  are  contradictions. 

Of  all  beings  man  possesses  most  of  consciousness, 
personality  and  determination.  What  he  has  of  these 
is  not  dependent  upon  gods,  but  all  they  have  of  them 
is  dependent  upon  him.  Divine  beings  are,  as  to  their 
self-consciousness,  personality  and  determination,  hu- 
man beings  personified  and-  placed  in  the  sky.  Man 
does  everything  for  gods.    They  do  nothing  for  him. 

Such  are  the  facts,  and  arguments  based  upon  them 
which  have  forced  me  step  by  step  over  the  long  way 
from  the  position  of  supernaturalistic  traditionalism 
in  its  Christian  form,  still  occupied  by  you,  to  that  of 
naturalistic  scientism  in  its  socialist  form  which  I  am 
now  occupying,  as  tentatively  as  possible,  pending 
further  study  in  the  light  of  additional  facts,  for  which 
(some  six  years  ago,  when  I  was  desperately  battling 
to  prevent  the  shipwreck  of  my  faith  in  the  god  and 
heaven  of  orthodox  Christianity)  I  appealed  to  about 
800  outstanding  theologians,  among  them  yourself, 
representing  all  parts  of  Christendom  and  every  great 
church,  including  of  course  all  our  bishops  among 
the  theologians,  and  the  Anglican  communion  among 
the  churches. 

You  may  remember  how  much  of  correspondence 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        131 

we  had  at  that  time,  though  neither  you  nor  any  one 
who  kindly  tried  to  reach  me  with  the  rope  of  the  new 
scientific  defense  for  which  I  appealed,  can  realize 
how  eagerly  I  looked  for  the  replies  to  my  questions, 
nor  the  sickness  of  heart  which  I  experienced  when  T 
saw  that,  in  spite  of  every  possible  effort  of  my  own 
and  help  of  others,  I  was  slowly  but  surely  drifting 
towards  what  I  then  thought  to  be  the  fatal  whirl- 
pools and  rocks,  but  what  I  now  regard  as  a  sheltered 
port — the  golden  gate  of  that  delectable  country  of 
Darwinian  materialism  and  Marxian  socialism,  the 
only  heaven  that  I  am  now  hoping  to  behold. 

You  earnestly  contend  that  I  am  wrong  in  repre- 
senting that  the  majority  of  outstanding  men  of  sci- 
ence and  scientific  philosophers  do  not  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  conscious,  personal  divinity,  who  cre- 
ated, sustains  and  governs  the  universe,  or  in  a  con- 
scious, personal  life,  for  man  beyond  the  grave,  and 
that  none  among  such  scientists  and  philosophers  are 
orthodox  Christians. 

Prof.  Leuba,  the  Bryn  Mawr  psychologist,  is  one 
among  my  authorities  for  these  representations.  In 
his  "Belief  in  God  and  Immortality"  (1916)  he 
exhibits  the  results  of  a  recent  and  thorough-going 
investigation  in  a  chart  from  which  it  appears  that, 
taking  the  greater  and  lesser  representatives  of  the 
scientists  together,  they  fall  below  50  per  cent  as  to 
their  belief  in  God,  and  below  55  per  cent  in  their  be- 
lief in  immortality.* 

The  showing  for  the  scientists  who  are  specially 
concerned  with  the  origin  and  destiny  of  life,  bio- 


*See  Appendix  II,  page  185. 


1 32     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

legists  and  psychologists,  is  much  less  favorable  to 
you;  for,  taking  the  greater  and  lesser  together,  only 
31  per  cent  of  the  biologists  believe  in  God  and  35  per 
cent  in  immortality;  and  only  25  per  cent  of  the 
psychologists  believe  in  God,  and  20  per  cent  in  im- 
mortality. 

But  the  worst,  by  far,  is  yet  to  come ;  for,  taking  the 
greater  biologists  and  psychologists,  those  who  count 
most,  of  the  former  18  per  cent  believe  in  God,  and 
25  per  cent  in  immortality;  and  of  the  latter,  the 
greatest  of  all  authorities,  only  13  i>er  cent  believe  in 
God,  and  only  8  per  cent  in  immortality. 

The  greater  psychologists  are  comparatively  con- 
sistent, in  that  fewer  among  them  believe  in  a  con- 
scious, personal  life  for  humanity  beyond  the  grave 
than  in  the  conscious,  personal  life  of  divinity  beyond 
the  clouds.  Human  immortality  is  an  absurdity  with- 
out divine  existence.  The  overwhelming  majority  of 
great  psychologists  (the  greatest  of  all  authorities,  as 
to  whether  or  not  gods  "without  bodies,  parts  or 
passions"  can  consciously  exist  in  the  skies,  and  dis- 
embodied men,  women  and  children  in  celestial  para- 
dises) see  this  and  limit  the  career  of  man  to  earth. 
In  their  judgment  his  heaven  and  hell  are  here,  and 
the  gods  who  make  and  the  devils  who  unmake  civili- 
zations are  humans,  not  good  or  bad  divinities. 

This  is  the  conclusion  of  a  rapidly  increasing  num- 
ber of  educated  people.  A  century  ago,  only  a  few 
men  of  science  and  scientific  philosophers  had  reached 
it,  not  twenty-five  per  cent,  but  now  the  percentage 
is  nearly  ninety  and  it  will  soon  be  ninety-nine.  The 
time  is  coming,  and  in  the  not  distant  future,  when  no 
educated   man   shall   look  to  the  god  of  any  super- 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        133 

naturalistic  interpretation  of  religion  for  light  or 
strength,  and  when  none  shall  hope  for  a  heaven  above 
the  earth  or  fear  a  hell  below  it. 

Heav'n  but  the  Vision  of  fulfill'd  Desire, 
And  Hell  the  Shadow  from  a  Soul  on  fire 
Cast  on  the  Darkness  into  which  Ourselves, 
So  late  emerg'd  from,  shall  so  soon  expire. 

— Omar. 

Joseph  McCabe  and  Chapman  Cohen  are  among  the 
most  brilliant  of  present  day  writers  on  scientific  and 
philosophic  subjects.  Both  see  that  modern  social- 
ism and  orthodox  Christianism  are  utterly  irreconcil- 
able incompatibilities. 

How  is  it  that  on  the  Continent  democratic  bodies  are 
so  sceptical,  or  sceptical  bodies  so  democratic?  Pre- 
cisely because  they  doubt  (or  reject  altogether)  the 
Christian  heaven.  They  want  to  make  this  earth  as 
happy  as  it  can  be,  to  make  sure  of  happiness  some- 
where. Having  taken  their  eyes  from  the  sky,  they  have 
discovered  remarkable  possibilities  in  the  earth.  Hav- 
ing to  give  less  time  to  God,  they  have  more  time  to  give 
to  man.  They  think  less  about  their  heavenly  home,  and 
more  about  their  earthly  home.  The  earthly  home  has 
grown  very  much  brighter  for  the  change.  The  heaven- 
ly home  is  just  where  it  was. 

The  plain  truth  is,  of  course,  that  the  sentiment  which 
used  to  be  absorbed  in  religion  is  now  embodied  in  hu- 
manitarianism.  Religion  is  slowly  dying  everywhere. 
Social  idealism  is  growing  everywhere.  People  who 
want  to  persuade  us  that  social  idealism  depends  on  re- 
ligion are  puzzled  by  this.  It  is  only  because  they  are 
obstinately  determined  to  connect  everything  with  Chris- 
tianity, in  spite  of  its  historical  record.  There  is  no 
puzzle.  We  have  transferred  our  emotions  from  God 
to  man,  from  heaven  to  earth. — ^Joseph  McCabe. 


134     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Socialists  who  have  one  eye  on  the  ballot  box  may 
assure  these  people  that  Socialism  is  not  Atheistic,  but 
few  will  be  convinced.  The  statement  that  Socialism 
has  nothing  to  do  with  religion,  or  that  many  professed- 
ly religious  people  are  Socialist,  is  quite  futile.  A 
thoughtful  religionist  would  reply  that  the  first  point  con- 
cedes the  truth  of  all  that  has  been  said  against  Socialism, 
while  the  second  evades  the  question  at  issue.  What  is 
at  issue  is  the  question  whether  Socialism  does  or  does 
not  take  an  Atheistic  view  of  life.  He  might  add,  too, 
that  a  Socialism  which  leaves  out  the  belief  in  God  and 
a  future  life,  which  does  not,  in  even  the  remotest  man- 
ner, imply  these  beliefs,  which  does  not  make  their  ac- 
ceptance the  condition  of  holding  the  meanest  office  in 
the  State,  and,  at  most,  will  merely  allow  religious  be- 
liefs to  exist  so  long  as  they  do  not  threaten  the  well- 
being  of  the  State,  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  an 
Atheistical  system. — Chapman  Cohen. 

Every  supernaturalistic  interpretation  of  religion 
postulates  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  world  which  is 
inhabited  by  a  spiritual  being  who  has  created  the 
material  universe  and  is  sustaining  and  governing  it. 

But,  on  this  assumption,  there  must  be  many  such 
worlds,  for  the  name  of  these  interpretations  is  legion 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  one  should  be  true  and  the 
others  not. 

And,  anyhow,  we  can  know  nothing  about  spiritual 
worlds  and  their  inhabitants  because  our  knowledge 
is  wholly  dependent  upon  our  five  material  senses  and 
so  there  can  be  no  connection  between  them  and  us: 
therefore,  most  men  of  science  and  scientific  philoso- 
phers ignore  those  worlds  with  all  that  in  them  is. 

Prof.  Leuba  speaking  of  Christian  dogmatism  as  a 
whole  says: 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        1 35 

Christianity,  as  a  system  of  belief,  has  utterly  broken 
down,  and  nothing  definite,  adequate,  and  convincing 
has  taken  its  place.  There  is  no  generally  acknowledged 
authority ;  each  one  believes  as  he  can,  atid  few  seem 
disturbed  at  being  unable  to  hold  the  tenets  of  the 
churches.  This  sense  of  freedom  is  the  glorious  side  of 
an  otherwise  dangerous  situation. 

Your  conception  of  the  origin,  sustenance  and 
governance  of  the  universe  is  burdened,  as  are  all 
interpretations  of  religion  which  are  hinged  upon  the 
existence  of  conscious,  personal  divinities,  with  two 
difficulties:  (1)  its  physical  impossibility,  and  (2)  its 
moral  impossibility. 

1.  Physical  Impossibilities.  The  atomic  and 
molecular  movements  required  for  the  thinking  of  a 
single  man  would-  be  beyond  the  capacity  of  all  the 
gods  of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations  of  re- 
ligion together. 

Some  idea  of  the  number  of  such  motions  which  are 
taking  place  in  every  human  brain,  will  be  derived 
from  the  conservative  representations  of  Hofmeister 
as  exhibited  in  the  following  condensed  form  by  Mc- 
Cabe  in  his  book,  "The  Evolution  of  Mind :"     • 

We  have  reason  to  believe  that  there  are  in  each  mole- 
cule of  ordinary  protoplasm  at  least  450  atoms  of  carbon, 
720  atoms  of  hydrogen,  116  of  nitrogen,  6  of  sulphur, 
and  140  of  oxygen.     Nerve-plasm  is  still  more  complex. 

Recent  discoveries  have  only  increased  the  wonder  and 
potentiality  of  the  cortex.  Each  atom  has  proved  to  be  a 
remarkable  constellation  of  electrons,  a  colossal  reser- 
voir of  energy.  The  atom  of  hydrogen  contains  about 
1,000  electrons,  the  atom  of  carbon  12.000,  the  atom  of 
nitrogen  14,000,  the  atom  of  oxygen  16,000,  and  the  atom 
of  sulphur  32,000.     These  electrons  circulate  within  the 


1 36     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

infinitesimal  space  of  the  atom  at  a  speed  of  from  10,000 
to  90,000  miles  a  second.  It  would  take  340,000  barrels 
of  powder  to  impart  to  a  bullet  the  speed  with  which 
some  of  these  particles  dart  out  of  their  groups.  A 
gramme  of  hydrogen — a  vSry  tiny  portion  of  the  simplest 
gas — contains  energy  enough  to  lift  a  million  tons  more 
than  a  hundred  yards.  — ^ 

Of  these  astounding  arsenals  of  energy,  the  atoms,  we 
have,  on  the  lowest  computation,  at  least  600  million  bil- 
lion in  the  cortex  of  the  human  brain. 

Scientists,  says  Professor  Olerich,  in  his  book,  "A 
Modern  Look  at  the  Universe,"  estimate  that  the  chemi- 
cal atom  is  so  infinitesimally  small  that  it  requires  a 
group  of  not  less  than  a  billion  to  make  the  group  barely 
visible  under  the  most  powerful  microscope,  and  a  thou- 
sand such  groups  would  have  to  be  put  together  in  order 
to  make  it  just  visible  to  the  naked  eye  as  a  mere  speck 
floating  in  the  sunbeam. 

The  microscope  reveals  innumerable  animalcules  in  the 
hundredth  part  of  a  drop  of  water.  They  all  eat,  digest, 
move  and  from  all  appearances  of  their  frolics,  they  are 
endowed  with  sensation  and  ability  of  enjoyment.  What 
then  shall  we  say  of  the  minuteness  of  the  food  they  eat ; 
of  the  blood  that  surges  through  their  veins ;  of  their  ner- 
vous system  that  thrills  and  guides  them?  Their  minutest 
organs  must  be  composed  of  molecules,  atoms,  ions  and 
electrons  inconceivably  smaller  than  are  the  organs  them- 
selves. 

Is  there  any  god  in  a  celestial  field  who  could  care 
for  the  movements  which  occur  in  the  molecules  con- 
stituting a  hundredth  part  of  a  drop  of  water,  not  to 
speak  of  those  which  occur  in  the  bodies  of  its  myriads 
of  inhabitants?  And  what  shall  we  say  of  all  the 
inorganic  and  organic  movements  in  a  small  cup  of 
whole  drops  of  water,  let  alone  those  of  a  g^eat  ocean 
of  them? 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        137 

But  why  go  further  into  this  subject?  Is  not  the 
utter  childishness  of  the  orthodox  representative  of  a 
supernaturalistic  interpretation  of  religion  (who  cred- 
its his  god  with  the  governance  of  the  motions  oc- 
curring in  the  mineral,  vegetable  and  animal  king- 
doms of  this  globe,  leaving  out  of  account  those  of 
its  solar  system,  ^nd  of  other  systems  which  con- 
stitute the  universe)  sufficiently  manifest? 

If  you  say  that  the  motions  which  issue  in  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe  are  regulated  by  a  lav/ 
which  was  once  for  all  willed  by  the  god  of  the 
Christian  interpretation  of  religion,  I  ask  why  the 
law  should  be  credited  to  the  willing  of  this  god 
rather  than  to  that  of  the  god  of  Jewish,  Moham- 
medan or  Buddhistic  interpretation. 

Newton  took  the  first  of  the  six  initiatory  steps  in 
the  long  way  which  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
universe  is  self-existing,  self-sustaining  and  self- 
governing,  by  showing  that  all  the  movements  of  the 
solar  systems  are  necessarily  what  they  have  been 
by  reason  of  a  matter-force  law,  gravitation.  This 
discovery  is  among  the  most  momentous  of  events  in 
the  whole  history  of  mankind. 

Laplace  took  the  second  step,  by  showing  that  the 
cosmic  nebulae  contain  within  themselves  all  the 
potentialities  necessary  to  the  formation  of  solar  sys- 
tems, 

Lavoisier  took  the  third  step,  by  showing  that  the 
matter  which  enters  into  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse is  an  eternality. 

Mayer  took  the  fourth  step,  by  showing  that  the 
force  which  enters  into  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse is  an  eternality. 


1 38     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Darwin  took  the  fifth  step,  by  showing  that  the 
protoplasm  contains  all  the  potentialities  of  every 
form  of  physical  and  degree  of  psychical  life  from  the 
moneron  to  man;  that  all  representatives  of  both  the 
vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  including  man,  are 
related  and  so  on  a  level  as  to  their  origin  and  destiny, 
and  that  the  different  species  are  the  natural  results 
of  the  necessary  struggle  with  rivals  and  with  adverse 
environments  for  existence. 

Marx  took  the  sixth  step,  by  showing  that  the 
essential  difference  between  hurpans  and  beasts  is, 
primarily,  a  question  of  the  hand  and,  secondarily,  of 
the  machines  by  which  its  efficiency  is  immeasurably 
increased;  that  slavery  has  been  and  must  continue 
to  be  the  means  of  advancement  towards  the  ideal 
civilization;  that  the  kinds  of  human  slavery  were 
what  they  have  been  because  machines  have  been 
what  they  were,  and  that  the  time  is  coming  when 
the  slaves  will  no  longer  be  men,  women  and  children, 
but  machines  which  will  be  exploited  for  the  good  of 
the  many,  not  the  profit  of  the  few — when,  and  not 
until  then,  rapid  advance  shall  be  made  towards  the 
goal  where  the  whole  world  shall  be  one  great  co- 
operative family,  every  member  of  which  shall  have 
the  greatest  of  possible  opportunities  to  make  the 
most  of  terrestrial  life  by  having  it  as  long  and  happy 
as  possible. 

2.  Moral  Impossibilities.  The  moral  impossibility 
of  the  assumptions  of  these  apologists  is  seen  by  all 
who  have  eyes  for  seeing  things  as  they  are  in  the 
fact  that,  if  God  is  credited  with  the  good  He  must 
also  be  debited  with  the  evil.  If  for  example,  He  en- 
dowed the  human  body  with  its  useful  and  necessary 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        139 

parts,  He  also  endowed  it  with  its  harmful  and  un- 
necessary parts. 

Experts  in  the  field  of  anatomy  tell  us  that  there 
are  in  our  bodies  not  far  from  107  useless  parts,  some 
among  which  are  the  occasion  of  much  suflfering  and 
many  premature  deaths,  the  vermiform  appendix 
alone  causing  many  thousands  of  such  cases  annually. 

Do  you  not  see  that  these  useless  structures,  all  of 
which  are  inherited  from  the  lower  animals,  are  so 
many  evidences  of  the  truth  of  Darwinism  and  the 
untruthfulness  of  Mosaism?  Eleven  of  these  wholly 
useless  and  more  or  less  harmful  inheritances  have 
been  of  no  use  to  any  of  our  ancestors  from  the  fish 
up,  and  four  are  inherited  from  .our  reptilian  and 
amphibian  forefathers,  but  according  to  Moses  we 
have  no  such  progenitors. 

Admitting  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  evil  there  is 
no  escaping  from  the  logical  conclusions  of  dear,  old 
sensible  Epicurus: 

Either  God  is  willing  to  remove  evil  irom  this  world 
and  cannot,  or  he  can  and  is  not  willing,  or  finally  he 
can  and  is  willing.  If  he  is  willing  and  cannot,  it  is  im- 
potence, which  is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  God.  If  he 
can  and  is  unwilling,  it  is  wickedness,  and  that  is  no  less 
contrary  to  the  nature  of  God.  If  he  is  not  willing  and 
cannot,  there  is  both  wickedness  and  impotence.  If  he 
is  willing  and  can,  which  is  the  only  one  of  these  suppo- 
sitions that  can  be  applied  to  God,  how  happens  it  that 
there  is  evil  on  earth  ? 

Oh,  if  only  the  world  had  been  influenced  by  this 
logic  instead  of  by  the  metaphysics  of  the  super- 
naturalistic  interpretations  of  religion,  it  would  have 
been  so  far  on  the  way  towards  the  ideal  civilization 


140     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

as  to  have  long  since  passed  the  point  where  it  would 
have  been  possible  to  have  the  world  war  which  has 
recently  deluged  the  earth  with  blood  and  tears,  or  to 
make  the  Versailles  treaty  which  is  destined  to  issue 
in  one  war  after  another,  ever  filling  the  world  fuller 
with  the  tyranny,  poverty,  slavery  and  misery  which 
are  the  inevitable  concomitants  of  all  wars. 

In  my  opinion  the  fascinating  essayist,  Mallock, 
has  written  the  best  of  all  apologies  for  theism.  I 
cannot  imagine  a  better  one.  He,  however,  makes  no 
more  attempt  than  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  does  to  establish 
Christianity,  or  any  other  supernaturalistic  interpre- 
tation of  religion.  Like  Kant  and  yourself,  Mallock 
takes  his  stand  qn  the  ground  that  a  belief  in  a 
celestial  God,  and  in  the  immortality  which  goes  with 
k,  is  -necessary  to  morality,  the  basic  virtue  upon 
which  civilization  rests.  As  Kant  admits  that  the 
existence  of  God  cannot  be  inferred  from  pure  reason, 
so  Mallock  admits  and  even  strongly  contends  that 
it  cannot  be  established  on  scientific  grounds.  I  quote 
a  striking  passage: 

We  must  divest  ourselves  of  all  foregone  conclusions, 
of  all  question-begging  reverences,  and  look  the  facts 
of  the  universe  steadily  in  the  face. 

if  theists  will  but  do  this,  what  they  will  see  will 
astonish  them.  They  will  see  that  if  there  is  anything 
at  the  back  of  this  vast  process,  with  a  consciousness 
and  a  purpose  in  any  way  resembling  our  own — a  Being 
who-  knows  what  he  wants  and  is  doing  his  best  to  get 
it — he  is,  instead  of  a  holy  and  all-wise  God,  a  scatter- 
brained, semi-powerful,  semi-impotent  monster.  They 
will  recognize  as  clearly  as  they  ever  did  the  old  familiar 
facts  which  seemed  to  them  evidences  of  God's  wisdom, 
love  and  goodness;  but  they  will  find  that  these  facts, 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM         Ml 

when  taken  in  connection  with  the  others,  only  supply 
us  with  a  standard  in  the  nature  of  this  being  himself  by 
which  most  of  his  acts  are  exhibited  to  us  as  those  of  a 
criminal  madman.  If  he  had  been  blind,  he  had  not  had 
sin ;  but  if  we  maintain  that  he  can  see,  then  his  sin  re- 
mains. Habitually  a  bungler  as  he  is,  and  callous  when 
not  actively  cruel,  we  are  forced  to  regard  him,  when 
he  seems  to  exhibit  benevolence,  as  not  divinely  benevo- 
lent, but  merely  weak  and  capricious,  like  a  boy  who 
fondles  a  kitten  and  the  next  moment  sets  a  dog  at  it. 
And  not  only  does  his  moral  character  fall  from  him  bit 
by  bit,  but  his  dignity  disappears  also.  The  orderly  pro- 
cesses of  the  stars  and  the  larger  phenomena  of  nature 
are  suggestive  of  nothing  so  much  as  a  wearisome  court 
ceremonial  surrounding  a  king  who  is  unable  to  under- 
stand or  to  break  away  from  it ;  whilst  the  thunder  and 
whirlwind,  which  have  from  time  immemorial  been  ac- 
cepted as  special  revelations  of  his  awful  power  and  ma- 
jesty, suggest,  if  they  suggest  anything  of  a  personal 
character  at  all,  merely  some  blackguardly  larrikin  kick- 
ing his  heels  in  the  clouds,  not  perhaps  bent  on  mischief, 
but  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  he  is  causing  it. 

But  we  need  not  attempt  to  fill  in  the  picture  further. 
The  truth  is,  as  we  consider  the  universe  as  a  whole,  it 
fails  to  suggest  a  conscious  and  purposive  God  at  all; 
and  it  fails  to  do  so  not  because  the  processes  of  evolu- 
tion as  such  preclude  the  idea  that  God  might  have  made 
use  of  them  for  a  definite  purpose,  but  because  when  we 
come  to  consider  these  purposes  in  detail,  and  view  them 
in  the  light  of  the  only  purposes  they  suggest,  we  find 
them  to  be  such  that  a  God  who  could  deliberately  have 
been^ilty  of  them  would  be  a  God  too  afcsurd,  too  mon- 
strous, too  mad  to  be  credible. 

The  god  who  had  any  part  in  bringing  upon  the 
world  the  English-German  war,  the  Versailles  peace, 
and  the  Russian  blockade,  is  for  me  a  devil  not  a 
divinity.    If  you  say  that  the  Christian  god  had  noth- 


142     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

ing  to  do  with  them,  I  reply  that  these  are  among  the 
greatest  of  all  curses  wherewith  mankind  has  been 
afflicted  in  modern  times;  and  if  he  could  not  or  would 
not  prevent  them,  what  ground  is  there  for  looking 
to  him  for  help  in  any  time  of  need? 

How  can  I  adequately  express  my  contempt  for  the 
assertioir  that  all  things  occur  for  the  best,  for  a  wise 
and  beneficent  end?    It  is  the  most  utter  falsehood,  and 

a  crime  against  the  human  race Human 

suffering  is  so  great,  so  endless,  so  awful,  that  I  can 
hardly  write  of  it.  .,  .  .  .  The  whole  and  the  worst, 
the  worst  pessimist  can  say  is  far  beneath  the  least  par- 
ticle of"  the  truth Any  one  who  will  consider 

the  affairs  of  the  world  at  large will  see  that 

they  do  not  proceed  in  the  manner  they  would  do  for 
our  happiness  if  a  man  of  humane  breadth  of  view 
were  placed  at  their  head  with  unlimited  power.  A  man 
of  intellect  and  humanity  could  cause  everything  to  hap- 
pen in  an  infinitely  superior  manner.  But  that  which  is 
.  .  .  .  .  credited  to  a  non-existent  intelligence  (or 
cosmic  "order,"  it  is  just  the  same)  should  really  be 
claimed  and  exercised  by  the  human  race.  We  must  do 
for  ourselves  what  superstition  has  hitherto  supposed 
an  intelligence  to  do  for  us. — Richard  Jeffries. 

Would  but  some  winged  Angel  ere  too  late 
Arrest  the  yet  unfolded  Roll  of  Fate, 
And  make  the  stern  Recorder  otherwise 
Enregister,  or  quite  obliterate! 

Ah  Love !  could  you  and  I  with  Him  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  Scheme  of  Things  entire, 
Would  not  we  shatter  it  to  bits — and  then 
Remold  it  nearer  to  t\^e  Heart's  Desire ! 

— Omar. 

You  frequently  intimate  that  my  doctrine  concern- 
ing the  origin  and  destiny  of  the  universe,  with  all 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        143 

that  therein  is,  including  man,  is  not  that  of  the 
majority  of  men  of  science  and  scientific  philosophers, 
but  that  yours  is.  ^  It  will,  therefore,  be  of  interest  to 
you  to  know  that  I  have  submitted  the  most  radical 
of  my  materialistic  pieces  to  three  men  of  science,  all 
great  authorities,  one  of  whom  replied,  that  he  was 
in  substantial  agreement  with  me,  but  thought  me  to 
be  400  years  ahead  of  our  time ;  another,  that  he  found 
nothing  to  criticize  unless  it  might  be  my  failure  to 
give  greater  prominence  to  the  fact  that  the  gods  of 
the  redemptive  interpretations  of  religion  were  so 
many  versions  of  the  sun-myth,  and  the  other,  that 
•the  essay  would  pass  any  world  congress  of  scientists 
by  a  large  majority. 

You  think  that  I  am  wrong  in  quoting  Newton  and 
Darwin  on  my  side,  because  they  believed  in  the 
existence  of  a  conscious,  personal  god.  I  am  per- 
suaded that  such  was  not  the  case  with  Darwin  at  his 
death;  but,  however  this  may  be,  it  is  in  neither  of 
these  cases,  nor  in  that  of  any  other  scientist,  a  ques- 
tion of  what  he  philosophically  believed  concerning 
a  god,  but  of  what  he  scientifically  established  as  a 
fact. 

Newton  established  the  fact  that  the  movements 
of  the  stars  in  their  courses  are  naturally  regulated 
by  the  law  of  gravitation,  not  supernaturally  by  the 
will  of  a  god. 

Darwin  established  the  fact  that  all  living  species 
of  animal' and  vegetable  life  exist  as  the  natural  re- 
sults of  evolutionary  processes,  not  as  the  super- 
natural results  of  creative  acts. 

If  Newton  were  to  stand  by  his  theological  writ- 
ing's, he  would  fall  in  your  estimation,  for  his  work 


144     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

on-  the  book  of  Daniel  would  be  regarded  by  you  as 
an  absurdity.  He  considered  Daniel  to  be  the  g^eat 
revelation  of  a  God,  Jehovah,  but  you  know  it  to  be 
the  purest  fiction  of  a  man,  quite  as  much  the  work 
of  the  imagination  of  its  author  as  Don  Quixote  is 
that  of  Cervantes, 

Among  the  many  theological  authorities  whom  you 
quote  against  me,  'the  greatest,  in  my  estimation,  is 
Dr.  Inge,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  London,  whose  utter- 
ances I  have  been  noting  with  great  interest  of  late; 
partly,  no  doubt,  because  he  seems  to  be  giving  up 
your  orthodox  side  and  coming  over,  slowly  but 
surely,  to  my  heterodox  one.  In  a  London  paper- 
which  has  just  reached  me,  the  Literary  Guide,  this 
is  said  of  the  Dean : 

The  theological  opinions  of  Dean  Inge,  one  of  the 
official  mouthpieces  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  prob- 
ably the  most  distinguished  spokesman  for  the  more 
liberally  minded  of  the  clergy,  have  now  reached  an  in- 
teresting stage,  both  for  those  without  the  Church  as 
well  as  for  those  within  it.  Although  he  does  not  feel 
called  upon  to  state  his  own  private  conclusions  on  such 
debatable  questions,  he  no  longer  regards  the  doctrines 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception  and  the  Bodily  Resurrec- 
tion as  essential  prerequisites  of  Christianity  and  would 
consider  fit  for  ordination  any  candidate  who  rejected 
them,  provided  such  a  person  still  acknowledged  the 
divine  nature  of  Jesus  Christ — that  is,  he  would  not  ex- 
clude him  from  the  Church's  ministry. 

If  I  understand  Dean  Inge,  as  he  is  reported  in  the 
article  of  which  this  is  the  opening  paragraph,  he 
bases  his  faith  in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  upon  the 
uniqueness  of  his  character  and  teachings,  not  on  the 
miraculousness  of  his  birth  and  healings. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        145 

But  Dean  Inge  has  no  authentic  or  reliable  account 
of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus;  and  so,  as  a 
theologian,  like  all  theologians,  he  lives,  moves  and 
has  his  being  in  the  realm  of  fiction,  the  difference  be- 
tween him  and  yourself  being  that  he  is  in  that  part 
of  it  where  the  imagination  sits  enthroned,  and  you 
in  the  region  where  metaphysics  is  monarch  of  all  it 
surveys. 

An  outstanding  theologian  who,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
overshadows  Dean  Inge,  commenting  upon  a  piece 
of  my  writing  which  is  quite  as  radical  as  any  part  of 
this  letter,  goes  even  further  than  he. 

"I  have,"  he  says,  "just  read  the  Chapter  of  your  Na- 
tural Gospel  for  a  Scientific  Age,*  which  you  have  kindly 
sent  me,  with  the  greatest  interest.  Indeed  I  have  come 
so  heartily  to  share  your  point  of  view  that  I  can  find  no 
points  for  criticism ;  I  can  only  say  how  grateful  I  am 
to  have  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  your  uncompromis- 
ing and  clear  expression  of  the  only  kind  of  Modernism 
that  has  any  promise  for  the  future.  I  am  beginning  to 
feel  more  and  more  uncomfortable  in  our  Christian 
movement  because  so  many  of  our  leaders  here  are  at- 
tempting an  impossible  compromise  with  dogma.  Men 
like  Dr.  Rashdall  have  no  place  in  the  movement  for 
men  who  cannot  accept  their  'fullblooded  theism.'  In 
fact  they  are  Harnackians  with  their  one  or  two  unal- 
terably fixed  dogmas/* 

V. 

If  you  ask  why  I  continue  to  be  a  member  of  an 
orthodox  church  and  its  ministry,  the  answer  is,  there 


*The  work  entitled,  "The  Natural  Gospel  for  a  Scientific 
Arc,"  has  not  been  published,  but  much  of  its  substance  is  in  this 
booklet.— W.  M.  B. 


146     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  for  (if  they  may  be 
interpreted  by  myself,  for  myself  symbolically)  I  ac- 
cept every  article  of  the  creed  of  catholic  orthodoxy; 
but,  if  the  articles  of  this  creed  must  be  interpreted  lit- 
erally, there  is  no  one  in  our  church  (the  Episcopal)  or 
in  any  among  the  churches,  who  believes  all  of  them. 
For  example,  who  believes,  that  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  out  of  nothing  in  six  days> 
as  he  is  represented  to  have  done  in  his  alleged 
revelation  of  which  the  creed  is  a  condensation?  All 
in  this  church,  or  at  least  all  the  ministers  of  it,  who 
have  obeyed  its  requirement  respecting  the  devotion 
of  themselves  to  study,  as  I  have,  know  that  the 
firmament  or  heaven  of  which  the  revelation  speaks 
has  no  substantial  existence,  only  an  imaginary  one. 
What  was  supposed  to  be  it,  is  but  the  reflection  of 
light  upon  the  dust  of  the  atmosphere.  As  for  the 
earth,  it  was  not  made  out  of  nothing;  and,  indeed, 
it  was  not  supernaturally  made  at  all,  but  naturally 
evolved  out  of  matter  and  forcee,  and  even  they  were 
not  created  by  a  god,  for  they  are  co-existing  etemal- 
ities;  nor  were  their  evolutionary  processes  directed 
by  him,  for  they  have  eternally,  automatically  and 
necessarily,  co-operated  in  such  processes  to  the  pro- 
duction of  every  phenomenon  which  has  contributed 
to  make  both  the  physical  and  psychical  parts  of  the 
universe  what  they  have  been  at  any  time,  including 
the  divine,  diabolical  and  angelic  fictions  which  men 
have  made  and  placed  above  and  below  the  earth. 

If  you  ask  whether  I  am  still  a  professing  Christian, 
I  shall  answer :  yes,  yet  the  Brother  Jesus  of  the  New 
Testament,  Catholic  creed  and  Protestant  confessions, 
is  not  for  me  an   historical   personage,   but  only   a 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        147 

symbol  of  all  that  is  for  the  good  of  the  world,  even  as 
the  Uncle  Sam  of  American  literature  is  not  an  his- 
torical personage  but  only  a  symbol  of  all  which  is 
for  the  good  of  the  United  States. 

If  you  ask  whether  I  am  a  praying  Christian,  I 
shall  answer:  yes,  yet  when  I  pray,  as  I  do  every 
day,  my  prayer  is  an  appeal  to  a  real  divinity  within 
my  heart,  the  better  self,  of  which  self  all  the  unreal 
divinities  in  the  skies  including  the  Christian  trinity, 
Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  are  but  poetic  symbols,  and  I 
no  longer  expect  this  God  to  answer  otherwise  than 
the  symbol  o'f  parents,  Santa  Claus,  answers  the 
prayers  of  children,  or  the  symbol  of  the  United 
States,  Uncle  Sam,  answers  the  prayers  of  Americans. 

If  you  ask  whether  I  am  a  communing  Christian,  I 
shall  answer :  yes,  yet  when  I  go  to  the  Lord's  Supper, 
as  I  do  every  month,  the  strength  which  I  receive  is 
derived  from  the  feeling  that  through  it  I  place  myself 
in  communion  with  my  human  brethren  on  earth,  not 
with  a  divine  brother  in  the  sky,  particularly  with  the 
members  of  my  church  and  the  citizens  of  my  town 
and  its  neighborhood,  but  generally  with  all  men, 
women  and  children  throughout  the  whole  world,  of 
which  real  brethren  the  brother  god  in  the  sky,  Jesus, 
is  but  a  poetic  symbol;  nor  do  I  now  regard  the 
communion  of  this  supper  as  being  essentially  differ- 
ent from  that  of  any  ordinary  family-meal,  lodge- 
banquet,  or  socialist-picnic,  with  each  of  which  re- 
pasts the  informal  Lord's  Supper  of  the  apostolic 
church  had  much  more  in  common  than  it  has  with 
the  formal  celebrations  of  the  sacrament  in  any  among 
the  sectarian  churches. 

Nevertheless  I  consider  going  to  the  services  of  an 


1 48     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

orthodox  church  to  worship  a  conscious,  personal 
God  in  the  sky,  and  to  listen  to  supernaturalistic 
nonsense  about  His  doings  and  willings,  as  they  are 
recorded  in  the  Bible,  and  about  a  future  life  with 
Him  in  a  heaven  above  the  earth  or  with  Satan  in  a 
hell  below  it,  to  be  bad  habits:  therefore,  if  I  could 
live  my  life  over,  I  would  not  allow  myself  to  be- 
come addicted  to  them.  The  persuading  of  children 
to  such  worship  and  the  teaching  of  supernaturalism  to 
them  in  Sunday  schools  is  a  great  crime  against 
them  and  the  future  world. 

Many  critics  represent  that,  in  view  of  the  changes 
in  my  theological  opinion,  if  I  am  an  honest  man,  not 
a  hypocrite,  I  will  leave  the  ministry  and  communion 
of  the  Episcopal  Church.  But,  why  should  I  go  while 
any  of  my  brother  clergymen  remain?  I  give  a  sym- 
bolic or  allegoric  interpretation  to  every  article  of 
the  whole  system  of  Christian  supernaturalism  and 
uniqueism;  yet  as  symbols,  allegories,  parables,  or 
myths,  I  do  not  reject  any,  and  no  member  of  our 
House  of  Bishops  literally  accepts  all. 

Who  among  influential  preachers  of  any  rank  in 
any  church  believes:  (1)  that  the  world  was  made 
about  six  thousand  years  ago  by  a  personal  Creator- 
God  out  pf  nothing;  or  that  it  was  made  at  any  time 
out  of  anything?  (2)  that  such  a  God  formed  Adam 
out  of  dust  and  Eve  out  of  a  rib;  that  they  left  His 
hands  as  perfect  physical  and  moral  images  of  Him- 
self, and  fully  civilized  representatives  of  the  human 
race;  or  that  there  was  any  first  man  and  woman? 
(3)  that  He  planted  a  Garden  of  Eden  and  placed 
them  therein  under  ideal  conditions,  and  that  He 
walked  in  it  and  talked  with  them ;  or  that  there  ever 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        149 

was  any  such  garden  ?  (4)  that  a  personal  Destroyer- 
Devil,  incarnated  in  a  talking  serpent,  tempted  them 
into  disobedience;  or  that  there  ever  was  any  such 
Devil?  (5)  that  but  for  this  Devil's  influence  and 
their  sin,  labor  and  suflfering,  physical  death  and  moral 
degradation  would  have  been  unknown  on  earth,  and 
that  it  would  have  been  the  permanent  abode  of  man- 
kind, as  indeed  of  all  sentient  creatures;  or  that  any 
of  the  higher  forms  of  life  ^vould  have  been  possible 
without  death?  and  (6)  that  to  repair  the  evils  ac- 
complished by  this  Destroyer-Devil  it  was  necessary 
for  a  personal  Restorer-God  to  become  incarnated  in 
a  man,  in  order  that  he  might  shed  his  blood  as  a 
sufficient  sacrifice  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  oflfended 
Creator-God;  also,  in  order  that  the  resurrection  of 
the  bodies  (bones,  flesh,  blood  and  animal  organism) 
of  all  deceased  men,  women  and  children  and  the 
rehabitation  of  them  by  their  respective  souls  could  be 
accomplished,  to  the  end  that  a  few,  on  account  of 
their  faith,  might  be  transferred  to  a  permanent  home 
in  a  heaven  on  a  firmament  above  the  earth,  and  the 
many,  because  of  their  lack  of  faith,  to  a  permanent 
home  in  a  hell  below ;  or  that  there  ever  was  any  such 
incarnation  for  these  purposes;  or  that  there  are  any 
such  firmament,  heaven,  and  hell,  or  that  there  will 
be  any  such  resurrection,  ascension  or  descension? 

If  other  bishops,  priests  and  deacons  can,  as  they 
must,  bring  in  their  symbolisirTor  allegorism  touch- 
ing any  or  all  of  these  six  fundamentals,  which  con- 
stitute the  basis  of  the  supernaturalism  of  traditional 
Christianity,  and  yet  not  leave  the  church,  why  may 
not  I  bring  in  mine  and  remain? 

Attention  is  called  by  several  critics  to  Sir  Oliver 


150  ^  CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

Lodge,  as  an  example  of  an  outstanding  man  of 
science  who  accepts  supernaturalism.  While  I  was 
desperately  trying  to  retain  my  conception  of  a  super- 
naturalistic  God  and  of  all  the  supernaturalism  that 
goes  with  it  (revelation  of  truth,  answer  to  prayer, 
guidance  by  providence,  resurrection  of  the  dead  and 
their  ascension,  eternal  consciousness  and  happiness) 
I  at  one  time  centered  a  great  deal  of  hope  in  him 
and  eagerly  studied  his  works  (as  indeed  I  did  those  of 
most  apologists  for  supernaturalism  among  them  the 
greatest,  Flammarion,  Balfour,  Bergson  and  Hudson) 
but  my  careful  study  of  his  many  writings  convinced 
me  that  he  does  not  hold  any  of  the  supernaturalistic 
doctrines  which  are  distinctively  Christian. 

However,  it  is  my  doctrine  concerning  Jesus,  rather 
than  that  of  Christian  traditionalism,  that  is  in  exact 
alignment  with  that  of  this  renowned  physicist.  We 
agree  that  if  there  is  a  God,  the  Father,  and  that  if 
Jesus  was  His  Son,  the  Saviour  of  the  worM,  He  was 
such  only  in  the  same  sense  in  which  we  are,  or  at 
least  may  become,  the  children  of  God  and  the 
saviours  of  the  world,  the  diflPerence  being  a  question 
of  degree,  not  of  kind. 

Most  critics  think  that  I  am  wrong  in  representing 
that  the  great  majority  of  the  leading  men  of  science 
are  naturalistic,  not  supernaturalistic,  but  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  represents  that  among  such  scientists  it  is 
generally  believed  that  the  universe  is  "self-explained, 
self-contained  and  self-maintained;"  and  speaking  on 
his  own  behalf  of  its  creation  out  of  nothing  he  says : 
"The  improbability  or  absurdity  of  such  a  conception, 
except  in  the  symbolism  of  poetry,  is  extreme,  and 
it  is  unthinkable  by  any  educated  person." 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        151 

All  these  gods  were  created,  endowed  and  located 
by  man,  and  then  he  had  them  make  revelations, 
create  churches,  institute  sacraments  and  appoint 
priesthoods  for  his  redemption  from  devils  whom  he 
also  created,  endowed  and  located. 

This  is  why  people  of  the  same  country  and  time 
have  such  different  gods  and  revelations,  Jehovah  is 
the  god  and  the  Old  Testament  is  the  revelation  of  the 
kings  and  plutocrats  who  are  responsible  for  wars; 
Jesus  is  the  god  and  the  New  Testament  is  the 
revelation  of  the  doctors  and  nurses  who  do  what 
they  can  to  alleviate  the  misery  of  them. 

The  gods,  not  excepting  Jehovah  and  Jesus,  are  as 
mythical  as  Santa  Claus  and  answer  their  suppliants 
not  otherwise  than  he  answers  his,  through  human 
representatives.  If  the  suffering,  needy  or  afflicted  do 
not  get  help  and  sympathy  from  men,  women  and 
children,  they  get  none  from  the  gods  and  angels. 

While  on  the  one  hand  the  great  majority  of 
scientists,  scientific  philosophers  and  educated  people 
generally  doubt  that  any  god  ever  answered  a  prayer 
or  exercised  a  providence,  on  the  other,  no  one  doubts 
that  men,  women  and  children  answer  millions  of 
prayers  daily  and  that  every  person's  career  is  wholly 
different  from  what  it  would  have  been  but  for  hu- 
man providence;  that,  indeed,  life  would  be  impos- 
sible without  the  providence  which  all  people  exercise 
in  the  hearing  and  answering  of  prayers. 

Representatives  of  many  of  the  interpretations  of 
religion  strewed  every  battle-field  of  the  European 
war.  The  celestial  saviours  did  not  care  for  one  of 
their  devotees.  The  terrestrial  saviours  (doctors  and 
nurses)  did  everything  for  the  desperately  wounded 


152     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

and  saved  millions  who  would  have  miserably  perished 
but  for  them.  These  were  the  real  christs  and  angels 
of  whom  the  celestial  ones  are  but  symbols.  The 
celestials  always  have  passed  by  on  the  other  side. 
The  terrestrials  are  the  Good  Samaritans  when  there 
are  any. 

Sceptics  infer  from  this  negligence  that  the  gods 
and  angels  have  no  real  objective  existence.  Believ- 
ers contend  that  they  really  exist  objectively  and  ex- 
cuse the  neglect  on  account  of  preoccupation.  For 
example,  the  God  of  traditional  Christianity  is  sup- 
posed to  spend  much  time  counting  hairs  on  the  heads 
of  His  people,  and  watching  sparrows  fall  to  the 
ground.  Sceptics  are  reverently  but  earnestly  ask- 
ing: Why  does  He  not  keep  the  sparrows  from  fall- 
ing? Why  does  He  not  let  the  hairs  remain  unnum- 
bered, until  He  has  put  a  stop  to  wars  and  promoted 
good  will  among  men  to  a  degree  which  will  render  it 
impossible  that  the  world  should  any  longer  be 
cursed  by  them? 

If  believers  say  that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  the 
ways  of  God,  sceptics  reply :  Since  all  that  is  known 
about  any  objective  reality  is  concerning  the  ways 
thereof,  what  the  action  is  under  given  circumstances; 
how  do  you  know  that  your  God  has  anything  to  do 
with  either  sparrows  or  men,  or  even  that  He  exists? 

As  to  their  philosophy  concerning  the  origin,  sus- 
tenance and  governance  of  the  universe,  socialists 
of  the  school  of  Marx  are  almost  to  a  man  material- 
ists; but,  as  to  their  philosophy  concerning  life,  they 
are  as  generally  idealists.  There  is,  I  feel  sure,  as 
much  idealism  in  my  thinking  and  living  now  as 
there  was  in  the.  days  of  my  orthodoxy,  but  I  will 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        153 

let  you  judge  for  yourself  after  reading  the  following 
confession  of  faith: 

My  early  life  was  blighted  as  the  result  of  the 
premature  death  of  my  father  by  the  Civil  War  and 
the  consequent  breaking  up  of  his  family  and  my 
bondage  to  a  German  who  made  a  slave  of  me,  broke 
my  health  by  overwork  and  exposure,  and,  worst  of 
all,  kept  me  in  ignorance,  so  that  when,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  I  began  my  education,  I  was  assigned 
to  the  fourth  grade  of  a  public  school. 

The  prime  of  my  life  has  been  wasted  in  preaching 
as  truths  the  dogmas  of  the  Christian  theology,  the 
representations  of  which  I  now  believe,  with  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  educated  people,  to  be  at  best 
so  many  symbols  and  at  worst  superstitions. 

But  though  I  do  not  now  and  probably  never  shall 
again  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  conscious,  personal 
god,  a  knowledge  of  and  obedience  to  whose  will>i^ 
necessary  to  salvation,  yet  an  injustice  is  done  me 
by  those  who  say  I  have  abandoned  god  and  religion. 

Every  one  who  desires  and  endeavors  to  fulfill  the 
requirements  of  a  law  which  is  independent  of  his 
will  and  beyond  his  control,  has  a  god  and  a  religion. 
I  desire  and  endeavor  this  in  the  case  of  two  such 
laws  and  so  have  two  gods  and  two  religions.  Both 
of  mj'  divinities  are  trinities.  One  is  in  the  physical 
realm  and  the  other  in  the  moral. 

In  the  physical  realm  my  triune  god  is:  matter,  the 
father;  force,  the  son,  and  motion,  the  spirit. 

In  the  moral  realm,  my  triune  god  is:  fact,  the 
father;  truth,  the  son,  and  life,  the  spirit. 

For  me,  the  triune  divinity  of  Christianity  is  a 
symbol  of  these  trinities  and  it  is  my  desire  and  effort 


154     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

to  discover  and  fulfill  what  they  require  of  men,  in 
order  that  I  may  make  my  own  physical,  psychical 
and  moral  life  as  long,  happy  and  complete  as  possible 
and  help  others  in  doing  this  for  themselves.  This 
desire  and  effort  is  at  once  my  morality  and  religion, 
my  politics  and  patriotism,  and  they  are  idealistic  or 
spiritual  realities. 

On  account  of  the  first  of  these  sets  of  spiritual 
virtues  (morality  and  religion)  I  claim  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian of  the  highest  type,  and  that  any  accusation 
which  is  raised  against  me  because  of  alleged  dis- 
loyalty to  any  essential  of  Christianism  is  an  injustice. 

On  account  of  the  second  of  these  sets  of  spiritual 
virtues  (politics  and  patriotism)  I  claim  to  be  an 
American  of  the  highest  type,  and  that  any  accusation 
which  is  raised  against  me  because  of  alleged  dis- 
loyalty to  an  essential  of  Americanism  is  an  injustice. 
^  From  the  viewpoint  of  the  self-styled  one  hundred 
per  cent  Christians,  I  am  a  betrayer  of  Brother  Jesus, 
because  I  do  not  believe  that  he  ever  had  any  exis- 
tence as  a  god  and  that,  if  he  was  at  any  time  a  man, 
the  world  does  not  now  and  never  can  know  of  one 
thing  that  he  did  or  of  one  word  that  he  said. 

From  the  viewpoint  of  the  self-styled  one  hundred 
per  cent  Americans,  I  am  a  traitor  to  Uncle  Sam,  be- 
cause I  did  oppose  his  going  into  the  English-German 
war,  and  because  I  do  object  to  the  partiality  which 
he  shows  to  his  rich  nephews  and  nieces. 

Still  Jesus  and  Uncle  Sam  are  as  dear  to  me  as  ever 
and  indeed  dearer,  yet  not  as  objective,  conscious  per- 
sonalities, but  as  symbols,  ideals  or  patterns. 

However,  though  I  love  my  Brother  Jesus  and 
Uncle  Sam  all  the  time,  as  a  child  does  Santa  Claus 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        155 

at  Christmas  time,  I  am  no  longer  childish  enough 
at  any  time  to  look  to  either  of  them  to  do  anything 
for  me,  because  I  know  that  what  is  done  for  me  must 
be  done  either  by  myself  or  by  men,  women  and 
children,  and  that  as  objective,  conscious  personal- 
ities, my  Brother  Jesus  and  Uncle  Sam  have  had  no 
more  to  do  with  my  life  than  the  man-in-the-moon. 

Your  observation  concerning  the  American  govern- 
ment as  being  the  standard  to  which  all  governments 
will  ultimately  conform  challenges  an  earnest  word 
of  friendly  dissent. 

Our  government  is  what  all  the  governments  of  the 
world  are  (with  the  single  exception  of  the  Russian) 
a  government  in  the  interest  of  a  small  class,  the 
representatives  of  which  own  the  means  and  machines 
of  production  and  distribution  and  who  produce  arid 
distribute  things  for  profit,  each  for  himself. 

The  representatives  of  one  class  produce  things 
socially,  and  those  of  another  class  appropriate  them 
individually,*  This  is  one  of  the  many  inherent  con- 
tradictions of  the  capitalist  system  and  it  will  not  dis- 
appear until  the  appropriation  of  products  shall  be 
socialized  by  the  workers  taking  them  over  from  the 


♦In  the  first  fifty  thousand  copies  of  this  booklet  what  followed 
in  this  paragraph  and  in  the  three  succeeding  paragraphs  created 
the  erroneous  and  unfortunate  impression  that  I  believe  anarch- 
ism would  work  out  about  as  capitalism  has.  This  is  not  at  all 
my  belief. 

The  basis  of  anarchism  is  the  doctrine  of  individual  liberty, 
and  this  liberty  as  I  contend  more  than  once  in  this  booklet  is 
the  greatest  thing  in  the  world;  the  great  essential  of  morality, 
the  only  foundation  upon  which  the  superstructure  of  a  real 
civilization  can  be  built. 

Anarchism,  as  one  of  its  representatives  says  in  substance, 
is  correct  in  its  condemnation  of  the  capitalistic  state,  because 
this  state  is  the  negation  of  individual  liberty,  and  if  it  con- 


1 56     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

present  owners  of  the  means  and  machines  of  pro- 
duction. 

Morality  is  the  very  heart  of  civilization  and  of  all 
that  really  makes  for  it ;  but  morality  is  impossible  on 
a  capitalistic  basis  for  it  is  founded  on  the  most  im- 
moral things  in  the  world,  robbery,  lying,  murder, 
ignorance,  poverty  and  slavery. 

If  I  am  right  in  the  conviction  that  the  United 
States  is  more  wholly  given  over  to  capitalism  than 
^y  other  nation,  not  excepting  even  England,  it  is 
tTie  greatest  robber,  liar  and  murderer  on  earth.  How 
then,  can  the  United  States  become  the  standard  for 
the  governments  of  the  nations? 

If  the  government  of  Russia  holds  its  own,  it,  rather 
than  that  of  the  United  States,  will  become  the 
standard  to  which  all  governments  must  measure  up 
or  else  go  down. 

Yes,  not  the  government  of  the  United  States  but 
that  of  Russia  is  destined  to  become  the  standard  of 
all  peoples,  for  the  aim  of  our  government  is  money, 
more  money,  and  then  some,  for  the  few,  while  the 
infinitely  higher  aim  of  theirs  is  life,  more  life,  fuller 
life,  happier  life  for  every  man,  woman  and  child. 

Within  my  generation,  the  vanguard  of  humanity 
has  passed  from  the  age  of  traditionalism  to  that  of 


fined  itself  merely  to  the  exposure  of  that  cold-blooded  monster, 
its  service  would  be  beyond  all  price.  But  anarchism  goes  much 
further.  It  shows  that  man  has  reached  the  point  at  which 
he  may,  if  he  chooses,  be  master  of  the  forces  of  production; 
and,  teaching  the  necessity  of  equal  opportunity,  it  would  secure 
to  the  world  an  economically  free  socjety  which  is  at  once  all- 
inclusive  and  so  simple  that  a  child  can  understand  it.  Get  the 
riders  oflF  your  backs.  Free  your  hands  from  the  shackles  of 
dependence  on  masters,  that  you  may  co-operate  for  the  satis- 
faction of  yoiir  own  wants. — W.  M.  B. 


OF  MARXISM  AND  DARWINISM        157 

scientism  and  this  transition  is  the  greatest  and  most 
salutary  event  in  the  whole  history  of  humanity.  It 
is  impossible  to  exaggerate  its  importance.  It  marks 
the  time  when  man  began  consciously  to  realize  that 
he  must  look  to  himself  rather  than  to  any  god  for 
salvation. 

From  time  immemorial  man  has  realized  that 
ignorance  is  his  ruin  and  knowledge  his  salvation, 
but  during  the  too  many  and  too  long  ages  of  tra- 
ditionalism he  made  the  fatal  mistake  of  supposing 
that  he  was  dependent  upon  a  supernatural  revelation 
by  an  unconscious,  personal  god  for  the  necessary 
knowledge.  But  now  the  leading  people  of  the  world, 
the  shepherds  of  the  sheep,  are  seeing  with  increasing 
clearness  that  man  has  naturally  inherited  his  knowl- 
edge and  must  naturally  acquire  by  his  own  experi- 
ence, reason  and  investigation  every  addition  to  it. 

The  world  is  indeed  passing  through  a  long,  dark 
night,  but  neither  the  longest  nor  the  darkest,  and 
since  at  last  a  great  and  rapidly  increasing  multitude 
happily  realize  that  humanity  must  work  out  its  own 
salvation  through  the  living  of  its  own  knowledge 
by  its  own  inherited  and  increased  strength,  not  by 
a  supernatural  grace,  we  of  this  generation  may 
rationally  hope,  as  those  of  no  other  did  or  could,  for 
the  dawning  of  the  longest  and  brightest  of  all  days. 

As  an  old  year  dies  into  a  new  one,  and  as  flourish- 
ing generations  die  into  rising  ones,  so  the  old 
traditional  ages,  when  nations  and  sects  looked  to 
their  rival  gods  in  the  skies  for  help,  are  happily 
dying  into  the  new  scientific  age,  when  all  sensible 
and  good  men,  relying  upon  the  strength  of  a  com- 
mon divinity  which  is  within  themselves,  will  unite 


158     CHRISTIANISM  FROM  VIEW-POINTS 

in  an  all-inclusive  brotherhood  for  the  promotion  of 
the  ideal  civilization,  a  universal  reign  of  righteous-' 
ness. 

It  is  night — midnight.  The  clock  is  striking  twelve. 
But  this  is  the  very  hour  and  the  very  minute,  when 
all  the  saviours  of  mankind  have  always  been  and 
ever  will  be  born.  Then  it  is  that  the  Virgin,  Nature, 
comes  to  this  dark  world  with  her  new  born  Son, 
Truth,  whom  to  know  and  follow  is  morality,  re- 
ligion, politics  and  life.  It  is  then  that  those  who  give 
expression  to  the  highest  ideals  and  deepest  longings 
of  mankind,  hear  the  angels,  Reason  and  Hope,  sing: 
On  earth  peace  and  good  will  towards  men. 

Very  cordially  and  gratefully  yours, 

Brownella  Cottage,  WM.  M.  BROWN. 

Gallon,  Ohio. 


FREDERICK  ENGELS 


^w^ 


I  ^  ' 


Tmi 


NIKOLAI   LENIN 


COMMUNISM  AND 
GHRISTIANISM 

ANALYZED  AND  CONTRASTED 

FROM  THE 

MARXIAN  AND  DARWINIAN 

POINTS  OF  VIEW 

PART  III. 

Criticisms  Answered  from  View-Points  of  Marxism 
and  Darwinism. 

Page 

I.     A  Marxian  Catechism 163 

II.     Some  Marxian  Definitions   174 

III.  God  and  Immortality   184 

IV.  Mythical     Character    of    Old    and     New 

Testament  Personages   190 

V.     Would  Communism  Change  Human  Na- 
ture?      197 

VI.     What  Will  Be  the  Form  of  the  Workers' 

State?    201 

VII.     Communist    Indictment   of    Supernatural- 

istic  Religion   206 

Afterword    311 


Morality  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world;  but 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  one  greater 
thing,  liberty — the  liberty  which  is  freedom  to 
learn,  interpret,  live  and  teach  the  truth  as  it  is 
revealed  by  the  facts  or  acts  of  nature.  With- 
out this  freedom  there  can  be  no  morality,  and 
of  course,  no  true  religion,  politics  or  civilization 


k 


FOREWORD. 

Throughout  all  the  changes  which  have  resulted  in 
the  evolution  of  man,  the  process  has  been  purely 
automatic.  No  thought,  no  idea,  no  plan,  no  purpose 
has  entered  into  the  great  cosmic  movement.  As  the 
winds  blindly  obey  the  physical  laws  of  the  earth's 
especial  character,  due  to  its  motions,  its  proximity  to 
the  sun,  its  orbital  inclination,  and  its  methodless 
land  and  water  distribution ;  as  the  clouds  gather, 
break  and  pour  their  contents  back  upon  the  earth, 
and  then  vanish  or  go  flying  across  the  sky,  impelled 
by  wild,  senseless,  and  reckless  forces ;  as  the  cataract 
plunges  and  the  volcano  belches  in  obedience  to  stern 
physical  impulses  to  which  no  one  think-s,  except 
metaphorically,  of  attributing  motive  or  intelligence 
— so  all  the  great  secular  processes  of  nature,  includ- 
ing the  development  of  organic  forms  and  of  man, 
have  been  impelled  by  blind  and  mindless  energies, 
guided  by  no  intelligence  or  conscious  power  either 
from  within  or  from  without.  The  inherent  motions 
of  the  ultimate  atoms  of  primordial  matter  as  eternal, 
uncreatable,  and  indestructible  as  those  atoms  them- 
selves, must  be  regarded  as  the  all-sufficient  cause  of 
all  the  results  we  see,  however  complex  and  wonder- 
ful we  may  consider  those  results  to  be. — Lester  F. 
Ward,  "Dynamic  Sociology." 


I.    A  MARXIAN  CATECHISM. 

The  working  class  and  the  employing  class  have  noth- 
ing in  common.  There  can  be  no  peace  so  long  as  hun- 
ger  and  want  are  found  among  millions  of  working 
people  and  the  few,  who  make  up  the  employing  class, 
have  all  the  good  things  of  life. 

—Preamble  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World. 

One  of  the  most  gratifying  among  the  criticisms 
with  which  the  first  edition  of  this  booklet  was  favored 
appeared  in  the  Weekly  People,  the  official  organ  of 
the  Socialist  Labor  Party  of  America,  which  calls  at- 
tention to  and  apf)logizes  for  one  of  its  defects  in  the 
following  passage: 

To  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  reader,  used  as  he  is  to 
the  closely  knit  argumentative  reasoning  of  Marx,  Engels, 
and  De  Leon,  this  booklet  wilf  undoubtedly  seem  loose- 
jointed  and  perhaps  even  rambling.  We  are  not  sure 
but  that  it  is  not  just  this  which  constitutes  its  charm. 
The  Bishop  is  not  arguing,  is  merely  talking,  talking  him- 
self out  after  a  struggle  that  must  have  wrung  his  soul. 

The  apologetic  part  of  this  passage  manifests  a 
kindly  consideration  by  the  critic  for  the  author's 
feeling,  but  the  truth  of  the  criticism  is  nevertheless 
realized.  Indeed,  the  defect  was  seen  before  going  to 
press  with  the  first  edition,  and  an  effort  was  made 
in  an  Appendix  to  correct  it.  There  were  further 
efforts  in  this  direction  in  the  first  and  second  revis- 
ions, resulting  in  enlargements  of  the  Appendix  until, 
finally,  thanks  to  the  critics,  in  this  third  revision  it  is 
developed  into  the  most  important  section  of  the  book- 


164      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

let,  Part  III,  Criticisms,  and  is  now  the  "tail  that  wags 
the  dog." 

The  following  Synopsis  of  Scientific  Socialism  or  Com- 
munism will  serve  both  as  a  summary  of  and  supplement 
to  my  little  book.  It  is  the  introductory  part  of  a 
catechism  (a  series  of  questions  and  answers)  entitled 
"Scientific  Socialism  Study  Course"  published  by  Charles 
H.  Kerr  &  Company,  341  East  Ohio  Street,  Chicago,  and 
is  reprinted  here  by  their  consent,  with  certain  changes 
in  the  interest  of  brevity  and  perspicuity.  As  a 
whole,  this  short  Study  Course  of  only  thirty  small 
pages  in  large  type  is  the  greatest  piece  of  catechetical 
literature  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge.  Even  the 
synopsis  as  given  here,  contains  more  of  the  education 
which  makes  for  the  good  of  the  world  than  all  the 
catechisms  of  all  the  churches.  The  Catechism  was 
published  in  1913. 

1.  How  do  you  explain  the  phenomena  of  History? 
Ans. :    History,  from  the  capitalist  point  of  view,  is  a 

record  of  political  and  intellectual  changes  and  revolu- 
tions of  so-called  great  men,  wherein  the  economic  causes 
for  these  acts  and  changes  are  ignored  or  concealed ;  but, 
from  the  socialist  view  point,  history  reveals  a  series  of 
class  struggles  between  an  exploited  wealth-producing 
class  and  an  exploiting  ruling  class  over  the  wealth  pro- 
duced. 

2.  What  effect  have  "great  men"  had  on  history? 
Ans. :    Great  men  were  simply  ideal  expressions  of  the 

hopes  of  some  class  in  society  that  was  becoming  econom- 
ically powerful.  They  formed  a  nucleus  around  which  a 
class  gathered  itself  in  attaining  economic  conquests  in 
its  own  interests,  and  in  esta])lishing  social  institutions  in 
harmony  with,  and  for  the  perpetuation  of,  such  class  in- 
terests. These  men  had  to  embody  some  vital  principles 
from  the  economic  conditions  of  their  time  and  repre- 
sent some  class  interest.  The  same  men  with  the  same 
ideas  would  not  be  great  men  under  a  different  mode 
of  production  when  the  time  for  their  ideas  was  not  ripe. 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  165 

3.  What  great  factor  is  responsible  for  the  rise  of 
"great  men?" 

Ans. :  The  fact  that  the  ideas  of  these  men  coincided 
with  the  interests  of  some  class  in  society  that  was  be- 
coming economically  powerful.  Therefore  economic  con- 
ditions must  exist  or  be  developing  which  find  their  high- 
est expression  in  the  ideas  of  such  men. 

4.  Why  do  social  institutions  change  and  not  remain 
fixed? 

Ans. :  Because  the  process  of  economic  evolution  will 
not  permit  them  to  remain  fixed.  The  development  and 
improvement  of  the  means  of  production  and  distribu- 
tion create  economic  changes,  therefore  social  institu- 
tions (the  state,  church,  school  and  even  the  family)  are 
forced  to  change  to  conform  with  changing  economic 
conditions.  These  are  due  to  evolutionary  processes 
connected  with  the  means  of  production  and  distribu- 
tion. 

5.  What  is  responsible  for  the  birth  of  new  ideas, 
and  do  they  occur  to  some  one  individual  only? 

Ans.:  New  ideas,  theories  and  discoveries  emanate 
from  material  conditions,  and  such  conditions  act  upon 
individuals.  The  same  idea  or  discovery  may  be  brought 
out  by  different  individuals  independently  and  apart 
from  each  other.  This  proves  that  it  is  not  great  men 
who  are  responsible  for  material  conditions,  but  that 
material  conditions  (modes  of  production  and  distribu- 
tion) produce  the  men  best  able  to  marshal  the  facts  and 
express  the  idea ;  usually  in  the  interest  of  some  class. 

6.  What  single  great  idea  occurred  to  both  Darwin 
and  Wallace  independently? 

Ans.:  The  theory  of  "Natural  Selection"  which 
showed  that  the  closely  allied  earlier  form  was  the  parent 
stock  from  which  the  new  form  had  been  derived  by 
variation. 

7.  What  single  great  idea  occurred  to  both  Marx 
and  Engels  independently? 

Ans.:     The  "Materialistic  Conception  of  History." 

8.  Name  the  three  great  ideas  developed  by  Marx  and 


166      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

Engels  which  now  form  the  bed-rock  basis  for  the  social- 
ist or  communist  philosophy. 

Ans. :  (1)  the  Materialistic  Conception  of  History, 
or,  the  law  of  economic  determinism,  (3)  the  Law  of 
Surplus  Value,  and  (3)  the  Class  Struggle. 

9.  Explain,  briefly,  the  "materialistic  conception  of 
history." 

Ans. :  "In  every  historical  epoch,  the  prevailing  mode 
of  economic  production  and  exchange  and  the  social  or- 
ganization necessarily  following  from  it,  form  the  basis 
upon  which  is  built  up,  and  from  which  alone  can  be 
explained,  the  political  and  intellectual  history  of  that 
epoch."  The  Ijiws,  customs,  education,  religion,  public 
opinion  and  morals  are  in  the  long  run  controlled  and 
shaped  by  economic  conditions ;  or,  in  other  words,  by  the 
dominant  ruling  class  which  the  economic  system  of  any 
given  period  forces  to  the  front. 

10.  What  is  the  most  important  question  in  life? 
Ans.:     The  problem  of  securing  food  and  shelter. 

11.  What  bearing  does  this  have  on  the  materialistic 
conception  of  history? 

Ans. :  It  gives  us  the  only  key  by  which  we  can  un- 
derstand the  history  of  the  past,  and  within  limits,  pre- 
dict the  course  of  future^development. 

12.  What  effect  does  the  prevailing  mode  of  produc- 
tion and  exchange  in  any  particular  epoch  have  on  the 
social  organization  and  political  and  intellectual  history 
of  that  epoch? 

Ans.:  "Anything  that  goes  to  the  roots  of  the  eco- 
nomic structure  and  modifies  it  (the  food  and  shelter 
question  in  life)  will  inevitably  modify  every  other 
branch  and  department  of  human  life,  political,  ethical, 
religious  and  moral.  This  makes  the  social  question 
primarily  an  economic  one  and  all  our  thought  and  ef- 
fort should  be  concentrated  on  it." 

13.  Do  the  ideas  of  the  ruling  class,  in  any  given 
epoch,  correspond  with  the  prevailing  mode  of  economic 
production  ? 

Ans.:     They  correspond  exactly,  as  all  social  insti- 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  167 

tutions,  civil,  religious,  legal,  educational,  political  and 
domestic  have  been  moulded  in  the  interest  of  the  eco- 
nomically dominant  class  who  control  these  institutions 
in  a  manner  to  uphold  their  class  interests  where  their 
ideas  find  expression. 

14.  What  effect  do  these  ideas  of  the  ruling  class  have 
on  the  interests  of  the  subject  class  ? 

Ans. :  The  effect  is  detrimental  to  the  interests  of 
the  subject  class  as  the  different  class  interests  conflict. 
Therefore  the  ruling  class  finds  the  institutions  men- 
tioned very  useful  in  either  persuading  or  forcing  the 
so-called  "lower  classes"  to  submit  to  the  economic  con- 
ditions that  are  absolutely  against  their  interest,  even 
though  they  are  the  wealth  producing  class. 

15.  Distinguish  natural  environment  from  man-made 
environment. 

Ans.:  Natural  environment  which  consisted  of  the 
fertility  of  the  soil,  climatic  conditions,  abundance  of 
fruits,  nuts,  game  and  fish  was  all-important  in  the  early 
stage  of  man's  development.  With  the  progress  of  civi- 
lization this  nature-made  environment  loses  its  supreme 
importance  and  the  man-made  economic  environment  be- 
comes equally  important. 

16.  Explain,  briefly,  the  law  of  Surplus  Value. 
Ans.:     It  is  the  difference  between  what  the  working 

class  as  a  whole  gets  for  its  labor  power  at  its  value  in 
wages,  say  an  average  of  five  dollars  per  day,  for  pro- 
ducing commodities,  and  what  the  employing  class  as  a 
whole  gets,  say  an  average  of  twenty-five  dollars,  for  the 
same  commodities  when  sold  at  their  value.  Accord- 
ing to  this  conservative  estimate  capital  is,  upon  the 
whole  and  in  the  long  run,  robbing  labor  of  four-fifths 
of  the  value  of  its  productive  power.  Capitalism  is 
therefore  the  great  robber,  the  Beelzebub  of  robbers. 

17.  Since  the  economic  factor  is  the  determining  fac- 
tor, what  does  the  law  of  Surplus  Value  furnish  us? 

Ans. :  "Surplus  Value  is  the  key  to  the  whole  present 
economic  organization  of  society.  The  end  and  object 
of  capitalist  society  is  the  formation  and  accumulation  of 


168      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

surplus  value;  or  in  other  words,  the  systematic,  legal 
robbery  of  the  subject  working  class." 

18.  Define  value  and  state  how  measured. 

Ans. :  Value  is  the  average  amount  of  human  labor 
time  socially,  not  individually,  necessary  under  average, 
not  special,  conditions  for  the  production  or  reproduc- 
tion of  commodities. 

19.  What  determines  the  value  of  labor  power? 
Ans. :     It   is   determined  precisely  like  the  value  of 

every  other  commodity,  that  is,  by  the  amount  of  labor 
time  socially  necessary  for  its  production  or  reproduc- 
tion by  the  raising  and  support  of  children  to  succeed 
their  parents  as  wage-earning  slaves. 

20.  Since  labor  power  is  a  commodity,  what  condi- 
tion is  it  subject  to? 

Ans. :  .  It  is  subject  to  the  same  conditions  that  all 
other  commodities  are  subject  to  without  regard  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  source  of  all  social  value.  The  worker 
in  whom  the  commodity  labor  power  is  embodied,  does 
not  get  the  value  of  the  product  of  his  labor,  but  only 
about  one-fifth  of  it,  enough  to  keep  him  in  working 
drder  and  reproduce  more  labor  power  in  his  children. 
If  the  worker  received  the  value  of  the  product  of  his 
labor,  he  would  receive  much  more  than  enough  to  keep 
him  in  working  order  and  to  raise  his  family.  Such  an 
economic  condition  would  abolish  all  forms  of  surplus 
value  or  profit,  also  the  wage  system,  by  substituting 
economic  and  social  organization  in  the  interest  of  the 
working  class.  No  other  class  could  remain  in  existence 
and  the  class  struggle  would  be  ended. 

21.  In  what  economic  system,  past  or  present,  does 
surplus  value  appear? 

Ans. :  Surplus  Value  is  the  root  of  all  social  systems 
since  the  rise  of  the  institution  of  private  property,  but 
only  under  the  present  system  (capitalism)  has  labor 
power  assumed  the  commodity  form.  Labor  power  is 
a  commodity  with  a  two  fold  character:  it  has  a  use  and 
an  exchange  value.  Its  use  value  consists  in  its  being 
capable  of  producing  surplus  values  over  and  above  its 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  169 

own  needs  for  sustenance  and  reproduction.  The  ex- 
change value  of  labor  is  in  the  amount  of  socially  neces- 
sary labor  time  required  for  its  production  and  repro- 
duction. 

The  chattel  and  feudal  systems  of  slavery  were  not 
directly  concerned  with  the  production  of  commodities 
for  the  profit  of  the  masters,  but  rather  with  the  pro- 
ducing of  the  necessities  of  life  for  all,  masters  and 
slaves,  and  luxuries  for  some,  the  masters.  Under 
chattel  slavery  that  which  was  not  produced  for  imme- 
diate consumption  was  sold,  if  opportunities  presented 
themselves,  and  occasionally  the  professional  traders 
developed,  for  example,  the  Phoenicians;  but  they  were 
an  exception  to  the  rule.  The  same  holds  good  for 
feudal  slavery,  except  that  during  the  latter  stages  of 
that  system  commercialism  arose  ;  but  this  commercialism 
was  no  feature  of  feudalism — it  was  the  rising  capitalism 
that  began  to  unfold  and  assert  itself. 

22.  Name  the  three^  great  systems  of  economic  or- 
ganization upon  which  the  structure  of  past  history  and 
social  institutions  have  their  basis. 

Ans. :  (1)  Chattel  slavery,  (2)  serfdom,  or  feudal 
slavery,  and  (3)  wage  slavery. 

23.  Explain,  briefly,  how  the  subject,  class  was  ex- 
ploited under  each  of  these  economic  systems. 

Ans.:  1.  Under  chattel  slavery  the  laborer  was  a 
chattel  (possession  or  property)  the  same  as  a  horse  or 
mule,  and  only  received  his  "keep,"  that  is,  enough  food, 
clothing  and  shelter  to  keep  him  in  working  order  and  to 
reproduce  labor  power  by  raising  children.  All  he  pro- 
duced (use  values  and  children)  was  taken  by  his  mas- 
ter. The  body  of  the  slave  was  the  property  of  his 
master.  2.  Under  serfdom  or  feudal  slavery,  the  work- 
er produced  what  was  necessary  to  keep  him  in  working 
order  and  to  raise  a  family  of  slaves,  and  then  the  bal- 
ance of  his  time  produced  use  values  for  his  feudal  lord. 
The  body  of  the  slave  was  his  own,  though  he  could 
not  go  about  with  it  from  one  place  to  another;  for  it 
was  bound  to  the  land  of  his  master.    3.  Under  wage- 


170       COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

slavery,  the  worker  receives  wages  which  again  equals 
only  the  amount  necessary  to  keep  him  in  working  order 
and  to  reproduce  more  labor  power  in  his  children.  His 
entire  product  belongs  to  the  capitalist,  and  out  of  this 
resource  he  pays  the  wages  for  the  commodity,  labor,  also 
for  ^  the  cost  of  other  commodities  such  as  raw  ma- 
terials, and  appropriates  all  of  the  balance  and  converts 
if  i«to  capital  with  which  he  not  only  continues  but  in- 
creases the  exploitation  of  his  workers.  The  body  of 
the  capitalist's  slave  is  indeed  his  own,  but  with  this 
difference,  that  if  he  does  not  like  his  master,  or  he  is 
disliked  by  him,  he  can  or  must  go  abroad  with  it  from 
one  place  to  another  looking  for  a  job — a  liberty  or  ne- 
cessity which  is  to  the  advantage  of  the  owning  class 
and  the  disadvantage  of  the  working  class.  Unemploy- 
ment is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  capitalism,  but  this 
necessity  is  a  danger  to  the  system  and  will  ultimately 
destroy  it  in  all  countries  as  in  Russia. 

24.  Define  the  "Class  Struggle." 

Ans. :  It  is  the  direct  clash  between  two  hostile 
class  interests  wherein  the  employing  class  makes  every 
effort  to  appropriate  more  of  the  wealth  produced  by 
the  working  class,  and  the  working  class  ever  struggles 
to  retain  more  of  the  wealth  which  it  produces.  The 
capitalist  class  strives  to  get  more  surplus  value  and  the 
working  class  strives  to  get  more  wages. 

25.  Define  "class  consciousness." 

Ans.:  Class  consciousness  of  the  workers  means 
that  they  are  conscious  of  the  fact  that  they,  as  a  class, 
have  interests  which  are  in  direct  conflict  with  the  in- 
terests of  the  capitalist  class. 

26.  What  function  does  the  state  perform  in  the 
class  struggle  ? 

Ans.:  "The  state  is  a  class  instrument,  and  is  the 
public  power  of  coercion  created  and  maintained  in 
human  societies  by  their  division  into  classes,  a  power 
which  being  clothed  with  force,  makes  laws."  It  is, 
therefore,  used  by  the  dominant  class  to  keep  the  sub- 
ject working  class  in  subjection  in  accordance  with  the 
interests  of  the  ruling  and  owning  class.    It  is  also  used 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  17! 

to  prevent  the  workers  from  altering  the  economic  struc- 
ture of  society  in  the  interests  of  the  working  class. 

As  the  author  of  the  catechism,  of  which  these  twenty- 
six  questions  and  answers  constitute  a  small  part,  says : 

Society  is  a  growth  subject  to  the  laws  of  evolution. 
When  evolution  reaches  a  certain  point,  revolution 
becomes  necessary  in  order  to  break  the  bonds  of  the 
old  and  bring  in  the  new.  As  the  chicken  grows 
through  evolution  until  it  reaches  the  point  where  it 
must  break  its  shell  (the  revolution)  in  order  to  con- 
tinue its  growth,  so  do  classes  of  people  come  to  the 
■point  in  their  evolution  where  revolution  is  necessary  in 
order  to  continue  their  growth  and  bring  in  the  new 
society  and  consummate  the  next  step  in  civilization. 

Since  1913,  when  the  foregoing  catechism  was  pub- 
lished, we  have  had  the  war  to  end  war  and  to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy — a  fateful  and  mournful  war 
in  which  millions  of  lives  were  lost  and  other  millions 
wrecked  with  the  result  of  multiplying  wars  and  in- 
creasing imperialism. 

It  was  a  war  between  national  groups  of  capitalists 
with  conflicting  interests  fot  commercial  advantages, 
which  is  unexpectedly  issuing  in  three  great  crises:  (1) 
the  imminent  bankruptcy  of  capitalism;  (3)  the  com- 
munist revolution  in  Russia,  and  (3)  the  imminent  tak- 
ing over  of  the  world  by  the  revolutionary  proletariat. 

Hitherto,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  capitalism  have 
owned  the  earth  with  all  that  thereon  and  therein  is. 
Henceforth,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  useful  work- 
ers shall  be  the  owners. 

The  class  consciousness  of  those  who  live  by  work- 
ing has  found  one  of  its -best  expressions  in  the  following 
paragraphs : 

The  world  stands  upon  the  threshold  of  a  new  social 
order.  The  capitalist  system  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution is  doomed;  capitalist  appropriation  of  labor's 
product  forces  the  bulk  of  mankind  into  wage  slavery, 
throws  society  into  the  convulsions  of  the  class  struggle, 
and  momentarily  threatens  to  engulf  himianity  in  chaos 
and  disaster. 


172      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

Since  the  advent  of  civilization  human  society  has 
been  divided  into  two  main  classes.  Each  new  form  of 
society  has  come  into  being  with  a  definite  purpose  to 
fulfill  in  the  progress  of  the  human  race,  and  each  has 
been  bom,  has  grown,  developed,  prospered,  become  old, 
outworn,  and  finally  it  has  been  overthrown.  Each  new 
form  of  society  has  developed  within  itself  the  germs  of 
its  own  destruction  as  well  as  the  germs  which  issued  in 
its  successor. 

The  capitalist  system  rose  during  the  seventeenth, 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  by  the  overthrow  of 
feudalism.  Its  great  and  all-important  mission  in  the  > 
development  of  man  was  to  improve  and  concentrate  the 
means  of  production  and  distribution,  thus  creating  a 
system  of  co-opefative  production.  This  work  was  com- 
pleted in  advanced  capitalist  countries  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  twentieth  century.  Capitalism  had  then  ful- 
filled its  historic  mission,  and  from  that  time  capitalists 
became  a  class  of  parasites. 

In  the  course  of  human  progress,  mankind  has  passed 
(through  class  rule,  private  property,  and  individualism 
in  production  and  exchange)  from  the  enforced  and  in- 
evitable want,  misery,  poverty  and  ignorance  of  savagery 
and  barbarism  to  the  affluence  and  high  productive 
capacity  of  civilization.  For  all  practical  purposes,  co- 
operative production  has  now  superseded  individual  pro- 
duction. 

Capitalism  no  longer  promotes  the  greatest  good  of 
the  greatest  number.  It  no  longer  spells  progress,  but 
reaction.  Private  production  carries  with  it  private 
ownership  of  the  products.  Production  is  carried  on, 
not  to  supply  the  needs  of  humanity,  but  for  the  profit 
of  the  individual  owner,  the  company,  or  the  trust.  The 
worker,  not  receiving  the  full  product  of  his  labor,  can 
not  buy  back  all  he  produces.  The  capitalist  wastes  part 
in  riotous  living;  the  rest  must  find  a  foreign  market. 
By  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century  the  capitalist 
world — Germany,  England,  America,  France,  Japan  and 
Qiina — was  producing  at  a  mad  rate  for  the  world 
market.    A  capitalist  deadlock  of  markets  brought  on  in 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  173 

1914  the  capitalist  collapse  popularly  known  as  the  World 
War.  The  capitalist  world  can  not  extricate  itself  out 
of  the  debris.  America  today  is  choking  under  the 
weight  of  her  own  gold  and  products. 

This  situation  has  brought  on  the  present  stage  of 
human  misery — starvation,  want,  cold,  disease,  pestilence, 
and  war.  This  state  is  brought  about  in  the  midst  of 
plenty,  when  the  earth  can  be  made  to  yield  a  hundred- 
fold, when  the  machinery  of  production  is  made  to 
multiply  human  energy  and  ingenuity  by  the  hundreds. 
The  present  state  of  misery  exists  solely  because  the 
mode  of  production  rebels  against  the  mode  of  ex- 
change. Private  property  in  the  means  of  life  has  be- 
come a  social  crime.  The  land  was  made  by  no  man; 
the  modern  machines  are  the  result  of  the  combined  in- 
genuity of  the  human  race  from  time  immemorial;  the 
land  can  be  made  to  yield  and  the  machines  can  be  set 
in  motion  only  by  the  collective  effort  of  the  workers. 
Progress  •demands  the  collective  ownership  of  the  land 
on  and  the  tools  with  which  to  produce  the  necessities 
of  life.  The  owner  of  the  means  of  life  today  partakes 
of  the  nature  of  a  highwayman;  he  stands  with  his  gun 
before  society's  temple;  it  depends  upon  him  whether 
the  millions  may  work,  earn,  eat,  and  live.  The  capitalist 
system  of  production  and  exchange  must  be  supplanted 
if  progress  is  to  continue. 

In  place  of  the  capitalist  system  we  must  substitute  a 
system  of  social  ownership  of  the  means  of  production, 
industrially  administered  by  the  workers,  who  assume 
control  and  direction  as  weU  as  operation  of  their  indus- 
trial affairs. 


174      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 
II.     SOME  MARXIAN  DEFINITIONS. 

The  grreatest  thing  in  the  world  is  economic  freedom, 
and  its  basis  is  the  land.  When  every  man,  woman  and 
child  owns  as  much  of  it  as  all  others  together,  that  is 
to  say,  when  none  can  present  a  title  deed  to  any,  the 
world  shall  be  economically  free.  Until  then  there  can 
be  no  real  religion,  politics  or  civilization,  for  economic 
freedom  is  the  divine  trinity  of  which  religion  is  the 
father;  politics,  the  son;  and  civilization,   the  spirit. 

It  is  impossible  fully  to  define  a  great  social  idea  in 
a  few  lines,  particularly  when  the  word  expressing  it  is 
given  various  interpretations  which  are  sometimes  con- 
tradictory. For  instance,  liberty  and  tyranny  stand  for 
two  opposite  poles,  and  yet  some  call  tyranny  liberty  and 
liberty  tyranny.  This  difficulty  is  especially  true  of  words 
which  are  meant  to  sum  up  the  ideals  of  a  system  in 
the  social  field. 

These  definitions  are  not  wholly  or  even  chiefly  mine 
by  origination,  but  only  by  modification  and  adoption. 
In  all  cases  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  Daniel  De  Leon's 
Industrial  Unionism  or  to  the  letters  of  able  critics  for 
their  substance  and  in  some  cases  this  is  true  also  of  the 
form. 

Anarchism:  The  individualistic  theory  in  its  liber- 
tarian (free  will)  aspect,  as  opposed  to  all  exercise  of 
the  will  of  some  over  others  by  coercion ;  but  not,  how- 
ever, to  its  exercise  by  persuasion.  Anarchists  hope  to 
construct  a  society  composed  of  free  associations,  in 
which  no  one  shall  govern  or  be  governed,  exploit  or  be 
exploited,  and  whose  foundation  shall  be  absolute  respect 
for  human  personality.  Anarchists  contend  that  nature 
has  endowed  all  mankind  with  equal  rights  and  equal  op- 
portunities ;  that  while  some  are  gifted  with  higher  men- 
tal, intellectual  and  physical  attributes  than  others,  these 
blessings  should  not  be  used  for  their  benefit  to  the  detri- 
ment of  the  less  favored ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  weak 
should  be  aided  and  not  preyed  upon  by  the  strong ;  that 
everything  which  is  consumed  by  humanity  should  be  as 
free  as  the  air,  daylight  and  water,  and  that  it  is  the 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  175 

mission  of  anarchism  to  redeem  humanity  from  social, 
economic  and  political  bondage,  by  taking  possession  of 
the  earth  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  produce,  with  no 
other  condition  than  that  every  member  of  society  who  is 
able  shall  do  something  useful  for  his  living. 

Bolshevism:  In  its  narrow  sense,  the  original  desig- 
nation of  the  majority  faction  of  the  Russian  Social 
Democratic  Party.  In  its  broad  sense,  bolshevism  is  an 
international  movement  aiming  at  the  overthrow  of 
capitalism  by  means  of  a  proletarian  dictatorship  to  be 
attained  by  a  world  wide  social  revolution  for  the  pur- 
pose of  introducing  a  communist  or  socialist  society. 
The  bolshevik  system  comprises  a  network  of  federated 
Soviets,  or  councils,  title  to  sit  in  which  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  some  necessary  social  function  connected  with 
the  carrying  on  of  the  labor  process,  or  the  adminis- 
tration of  affairs  connected  with  it.  Bolshevism  is  the 
economic  system  under  which  the  necessaries  of  produc- 
tion are  owned,  controlled,  and  administered  by  the 
workers,  for  the  people,  and  under  which,  accordingly, 
the  cause  of  political  and  economic  despotism  having 
been  abolished,  class  rule  is  at  an  end.  The  bolshevists 
emphasize  the  political  and  parliamentary  factors  in  so- 
cial control,  rather  than  the  industrial  ones.  Their 
eventual  aim  and  social  theory  are  hardly  to  be  distin- 
guished from  those  of  I.  W.  W.ism. 

Capitalism:  The  social  system  under  which  the  tool 
of  production  (capital)  has  grown  to  such  mammoth 
size  that  the  class  which  owns  it  rules  land  and  sea  like  a 
despot,  inaccessible  and  undethronable  by  economic  com- 
petition, and  "which  is  steadily  swelling  the  number  of  its 
slaves,  the  wage  slaves,  thereby  itself  recruiting  the  forces 
that  will  overthrow  it,  and  push  civilization  onward  to 
the  communist  or  socialist  republic.  It  is  a  system  of 
economics  which  stimulates  the  accumulation  of  capital 
and  social  power  (as  the  result  of  one's  own  or  other's 
work)  in  the  hands  of  individuals,  the  issue  being  so- 
cial inequality,  which  is  the  cause  of  the  greatest  social 
evils — ignorance,  war,  poverty  and  slaverj-.  Capitalism 
is  the  social  system  under  which  the  tools  of  production 


176      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

and  distribution,  and  the  natural  resources  are  privately 
owned  and  privately  managed,  production  being  carried 
on  for  private  gain  rather  than  social  service.  Under  this 
system  the  wage  slaves  make  and  operate  the  machines 
of  production  and  collect  the  raw  materials  necessary  to 
it;  and  they  are  robbed  by  the  owning  masters  who  pay 
them  an  average  of  not  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  value 
they  create.  The  slaves  need  more  but  are  forced  to 
under-consumption  because  they  are  underpaid.  Thus, 
though  the  consumption  of  the  masters  is  far  beyond 
their  needs,  and  much  is  wasted  by  them  in  scandalous 
extravagances,  a  surplus  is  left  by  the  domestic  market 
which  must  be  sold  in  a  foreign  one.  The  capitalist  na- 
tions of  the  world  are  all,  therefore,  seeking  foreign 
markets  in  which  to  dispose  of  their  surplus  product. 
This  competition  brings  them  into  conflict  with  each 
other.  When  they  are  unsuccessful,  as  is  periodically 
the  case,  there  is  at  best  unemployment  and  at  worst  war. 
Communism :  The  social  system  under  which  the  ma- 
chinery of  production  and  distribution  and  the  natural  re- 
sources with  all  things  socially  used,  will  be  owned  and 
controlled  by  the  people  collectively.  Production  will  be 
carried  on  for  use  and  not  for  profit.  Every  able-bodied 
person  will  be  compelled  to  render  social  service.  Com- 
munists indorse  one  text  of  the  Christian  scriptures: 
"He  that  will  not  work,  neither  shall  he  eat."  The  work- 
ers will  receive  the  full  social  value  for  services  ren- 
dered. They  can  consume  just  in  proportion  to  the 
value  they  create.  By  this  method  there  would  be  no 
surplus  to  dispose  of,  no  exploitation  of  the  producer, 
no  poverty  or  unemployment.  Strikes  and  wars  would 
disappear.  Communists  hold  to  the  collectivist  theory 
carried  to  its  ultimate — the  collectivist  control  of  all 
production.  It  is  the  affirmation  that  nothing  essential 
belongs  to  any  set  of  individuals  or  that  everything  be- 
longs to  everybody,  that  is  to  say,  all  there  is  on 
earth  belongs  to  the  world  as  a  whole  and  to  no 
indi-^dual  in  particular.  It  allows  of  course  for  private 
control  of  purely  personal 'things.  Its  maxim  is:  to 
each  according  to  his  needs,  from  each  according  to  his 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  177 

ability.  Communists  believe  in  and  aim  to  apply  cen- 
tralized control  and  operation  of  production,  distribution 
and  administration  over  wide  and  varied  areas.  They 
take  this  stand  because  industry  is  a  huge,  co-ordinated 
machine  which  is  entirely  interdependent  as  to  all  of  its 
parts.  When  the  ideals  of  communists  are  finally  real- 
ized, it  will  be  found  that  the  state  has  become  useless 
because  the  people  have  become  accustomed  to  observe 
the  fundamental  principles  of  social  life;  that  labor  has 
become  efficient  enough  to  insure  a  constant  torrent  of 
productions;  that  men  will  voluntarily  work  according 
to  their  ability,  and  that  they  will,  therefore,  be  able  by 
common  consent  to  take  according  to  their  needs.  In 
a  communist  society  "the  government  of  persons  is  re- 
placed by  the  administration  of  things  and  by  the  con- 
duct of  the  process  of  production." 

Equitism:  The  theory  of  the  application  of  individ- 
ualism to  human  association,  that  all  titles  to  exclusive 
possession  originate  in  the  exertion  of  individuals;  and 
that,  therefore,  the  basing  of  all  exchange  of  titles  to 
exclusive  possession  should  be  on  "hour  for  hour"  ex- 
change of  adult  human  work.  This  will  secure  and 
maintain  equal  freedom  and  thereby  place  the  merit  in- 
centive in  control  of  human  actions,  and  thus  make  un- 
necessary any  coercive  exercise  of  the  will  of  some  over 
others. 

Industrialism:  The  social  system  or  economic  or- 
ganization of  workers  which  denies  that  the  working 
class  and  the  capitalist  class,  as  such,  are  brothers,  and 
recognizes  the  irrepressible  nature  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  two.  Industrialists  contend  that  the  struggle 
between  these  classes  can  not  end  until  the  capitalist 
class  is  thrown  off  labor's  back.  They  also  contend  that 
an  injury  to  one  workman  is  an  injury  to  all ;  and,  con- 
sequently, they  organize  the  whole  working  class  into 
one  union,  subdivided  only  into  such  bodies  as  their  re- 
spective industries  demand,  in  order  to  wrestle  as  one 
body  constituted  of  the  workers  of  all  industries  for  the 
immediate  amelioration  of  its  membership,  and  for  their 
eventual  emancipation  by  the  total   overthrow   of   the 


178      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

economic  and  political  rule  of  the  capitalist  class.  In 
the  capitalist  sense,  industrialism  means  the  ownership, 
operation  and  control  of  industry  by  the  owners  for 
gain  and  not  for  use  or  service.  In  the  communistic 
sense,  industrialism  means  the  ownership  of  industry 
by  those  who  work — those  who  produce  and  oper- 
ate industry  fqr  the  benefit,  use  and  service  of  all  who 
are  producers,  and  as  well  for  those  who,  through  physi- 
cal or  mental  impediment,  are  unable  to  produce.  The 
aim  of  industrialists  is  to  so  organize  the  workers  that 
they  shall  not  only  be  a  factor  in  throwing  off  the  capital- 
ist class  rule,  but  also  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  indus- 
tries, so  that  after  the  revolution  they  may  efficiently 
carry  on  and  develop  all  the  industrial  processes.  The 
co-ordination  of  the  actual  technical  processes  is  almost 
as  important,  from  the  theoretical  point  of  view  of  fu- 
ture industrialism,  as  is  the  furtherance  of  the  class 
struggle.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  I.  W.  W,  Pre- 
amble contains  the  representation  about  building  the  new 
society  within  the  shell  of  the  old. 

Industrial  Unionism:  The  organizatiqn  of  workers 
by  industry  as  opposed  to  organization  by  craft.  Where- 
as in  craft  unionism  the  workers  are  organized  according 
to  their  occupation,  trade  or  profession,  irrespective  of 
industry,  in  industrial  unionism  the  workers  are  organ- 
ized according  to  the  industry  irrespective  of  occupation, 
trade  or  profession.  For  example,  all  the  workers  in  the 
transport  industry  whether  clerks,  cleaners,  engineers, 
■  porters,  carpenters  or  printers,  would  be  organized  in 
that  industry  as  one  big  union.  In  other  words,  indus- 
trial unionism  is  the  theoretical  expression  of  the  indus- 
trial unions  which  organizes  the  workers  in  an  entire  in- 
dustry into  one  organization,  instead  of  dividing  them  into 
separate  crafts. 

Industrial  Unionism  and  Revolutionary  Industrialism: 
The  theory  that  the  working  class,  through  their  indus- 
trial unions,  should  take  over  all  the  means  of  production 
and  organize  a  new  social  order  for  the  production  and 
distribution  of  all  commodities.  This  industrialism  is 
an  organized  expression  of  the  fact  that  the  working 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  179 

class  is  the  producing  class,  coupled  with  their  avowed 
intention  to  carry  on  the  labor  process  without  let  or 
hindrance  from  any  other  class. 

Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  and  Workers'  Inter- 
national Industrial  Union :  The  difference  between  these 
is  that  the  W.  1. 1.  U.  believes  in  using  both  parliamentary 
and  industrial  action,  whereas  the  I.  W.  W.  repudiates 
parliamentary  action  and  works  on  the  industrial  field 
alone.  Originally  they  were  together,  but  later  on  they 
divided  because  of  this  difference ;  both,  however,  going 
under  the  name  of  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World. 
Some  time  later,  to  avoid  confusion,  the  section  believing 
in  parliamentary  action  changed  its  name  to  Workers'  In- 
ternational Industrial  Union.  Industrial  unionism  is  as 
much  a  weapon  of  self-preservation  as  the  grouping  of 
the  weaker  species  against  the  stronger  beasts  of  the 
jungle.  Under  a  free  society  there  would  be  no  need  on 
the  part  of  the  workers  for  militant  unionism,  because 
the  owning  class  would  have  been  abolished,  and  the 
workers  would  use  their  energy  to  promote  their  own  wel- 
fare instead  of  that  of  the  capitalists.  However,  under 
the  present  system,  industrial  unionism  means  the  organ- 
ization of  all  the  workers  by  industries,'  not  crafts.  In- 
dustrial unionism  is  only  the  application  of  the  theories  of 
the  I.  W.  W.  and  the  W.  I.  I.  U.,  wholly  or  in  part,  to  la- 
bor organizations.  It  represents,  essentially-,  that  form  of 
labor  organization  which  is  organized  to  conform  to  the 
industrial  structure,  though  it  may  not  necessarily  be 
class-conscious.  Revolutionary  industrialism  brings  into 
such  a  union  the  factor  of  class-consciousness. 

Materialistic  Explanation  of  History:  According  to 
Marxian  socialism,  the  history  of  man  arose  from  the 
need  of  his  body  for  food,  raiment  and  shelter.  This 
is  the  materialistic  explanation  of  history,  and  the  fol- 
lowing is  one  of  the  passages  in  which  Marx  and  Engels 
clearly  show  that  it  is  true  and  reasonable : 

In  every  historical  epoch,  the  prevailing  mode  of 
economic  production  and  exchange,  and  the  social  or- 
ganization    necessarily    following    from    it,    form    the    basis 


180      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

upon  which  ia  built  up«  and  from  which  alone  can  be 
explained,  the  political  and  intellectual  history  of  that 
epoch;  consequently  the  whole  history  of  mankind 
(since  the  dissolution  of  primitive  tribal  society,  holding 
land  in  common  ownership)  has  been  a  history  of  class 
struggles,  contests  between  exploiting  and  exploited,  rul- 
ing and  oppressed  classes;  the  history  of  these  class  strug- 
gles forms  a  series  of  evolution  in  which,  nowadays,  a 
stage  has  been  reached  where  the  exploited  and  op- 
pressed class — the  proletariat— —cannot  attain  its  emanci- 
pation from  the  sway  of  the  exploiting  and  ruling  class 
^— the  bourgeoisie — without,  at  the  same  time,  and  once 
and  for  all,  emancipating  society  at  large  from  all  ex- 
ploitation, oppression,  class-distinctions  and  class  strug- 
gles. 

Gods  make  no  history,  and  great  men  but  little.  Most 
of  it  is  made  by  machines.  In  my  generation  the  steam 
engine  has  had  more  to  do  with  the  making  of  history 
than  all  great  men  together  and  this  has  been  true  of 
some  machine  in  every  age.  The  history  of  the  world 
is  divided  by  Darwinism  and  Marxism  into  two  eras,  the 
traditional  and  the  scientific,  and  the  difference  between 
them  is  a  question  of  machines,  not  of  gods  and  great 
men. 

Shop  Delegate  or  Steward  System:  This  is  the 
dynamic  part  of  industrialism.  It  is  included  in  some 
measure  in  all  industrial  unions  whether  revolutionary 
or  not.  The  philosophy  of  this  movement  is  that  all 
final  authority  should  be  vested  in  the  workers  in  the 
shops,  that  trade  union  organization  should  have  through- 
out a  workshop  basis,  and  that  the  instruments  of  ad- 
vanced action  should  be  Workers'  Committees,  consisting 
of  delegates  from  the  shops,  and  representing  all  grades 
of  workers,  skilled  or  unskilled,  men  or  women. 

Socialism:  1.  In  the  first  place  it  is  the  science  of  so- 
ciety, embracing  the  science  of  economics  and  the  science 
of  sociology.  Socialism  or  communism,  as  the  science  of 
economics,  is  based  upon  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
the  working  class  is  the  only  useful  class  in  society,  the 
only  class  that  produces  social  values,  with  the  consequent 
theory  that  the  capitalist  or  ruling  class  is  a  parasitic 
class  and  an  incubus  upon  society.     Hence,  there  is  no 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  181 

identity  of  interest  between  the  two  classes  Socialism, 
as  the  science  of  sociology,  is  based  upon  the  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  there  is  no  permanency  in 
social  systems.  It  teaches  that  society  is  an  organism 
subject  to  change — ^birth,  infancy,  maturity,  decay,  and 
final  death.  It  teaches  that  history  consists  of  a  series  of 
class  struggles,  and  that  the  motive  power  of  changes  in 
social  forms  and  the  attendant  class  struggles  is  to  be 
found  in  the  economic  basis  of  a  given  epoch,  that  is,  in 
the  particular  manner  in  which  society  during  an  his- 
torical period  produced  its  food,  shelter  and  clothing.  It 
teaches  that  the  economic  system  depends  on  the  forms 
and  developments  of  the  tools  and  implements  of  pro- 
duction during  the  given  period.  It  teaches  that  the 
social  superstructure  (the  government,  the  ethical  con- 
cepts, the  religious  forms  and  jurisprudence)  is  formed 
and  directed  in  obedience  to  this  economic  basis.  It 
also  teaches  that  the  aim  of  mankind  is  more  than 
that  of  acquiring  private  property — ^that  "a  mere 
property  career  is  not  the  final  destiny  of  mankind, 
if  progress  is  to  be  the  law  of  the  future  as  it  has  been 
in  the  past."  The  two  combined — the  science  of  eco- 
nomics and  the  science  of  sociology — furnish  the  knowl- 
edge prerequisite  for  an  orderly  and  peaceful  solution 
of  the  social  problem  and  for  the  ushering  in  of  a  social 
order  on  a  higher  plane.  3.  In  the  second  place  socialism 
is  that  form  of-  society  in  which  production  is  carried  on 
solely  for  use  (in  contradistinction  to  the  present  pro- 
duction for  profit)  and  in  which  the  land,  implements, 
and  plants  of  production  are  owned  collectively  by  the 
useful  producers  and  administered  through  the  in- 
dustrial organization  of  these  producers,  who  today  are 
the  wage  workers.  This  precludes  the  existence  of  po- 
litical government,  and  implies  the  substitution  therefor 
of  an  industrial  government,  a  government  having  its 
basis  of  representation  in  the  various  industries,  each 
worker  with  a  voice  and  a  vote,  in  contradistinction  to 
the  present  political  government  with  its  basis  of  repre- 
sentation in  purely  political  (geographical)  and  arbitrary 
divisions.    For  the  accomplishment  of  its  aim,  socialism 


182      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

teaches  that  the  working  class  must  organize  politically 
and  industrially  for  the  complete  and — to  the  extent  it 
lies  in  the  power  of  the  workers — ^the  peaceful  overthow 
of  the  present  order  of  society.  Socialism,  accordingly, 
is  the  direct  antithesis  of  capitalism  in  its  philosophy,  its 
historical  conception  and  its  economics,  as  well  as  in  so- 
cial form  and  productive  purposes. 

These  are  prophetic  words  written  fifty  years  ago  by 
Frederick  Engels  about  communistic  socialism: 

Since  the  historical  appearance  of  the  capitalist  mode 
of  production,  the  appropriation  by  society  of  all  the 
means  of  production  has  often  been  dreamed  of,  more 
or  less  vaguely,  by  individuals,  as  vrell  as  by  sects,  as  the 
ideal  of  the  future.  But  it  could,  become  possible,  could 
become  a  historical  necessity,  only  when  the  actual  con- 
ditions for  its  realization  were  there.  Like  every  other 
social  advance,  it  becomes  practicable,  not  by  men  under- 
standing that  the  'existence  of  classes  is  in  contradiction 
to  justice,  equality,  etc.,  not  by  the  mere  willingness  to 
abolish  these  classes,  but  by  virtue  of  certain  new 
economic  conditions.  »  »  *  So  long  as  the  total 
social  labor  only  yields  a  produce  which  but  slightly  ex- 
ceeds that  barely  necessary  for  the  existence  of  all;  so 
long,  therefore,  as  labor  engages  all  or  almost  all  the 
time  of  the  great  majority  of  the  members  of  society 
—so  long,  of  necessity,  this  society  is  divided  into 
classes.      *      *      * 

With  the  a(eizing  of  the  means  of  production  by 
society,  production  of  commodities  is  done  avray  with, 
and,  simultaneously,  the  mastery  of  the  product  over  the 
producer.  Anarchy  in  social  production  is  replaced  by 
systematic,  definite  organization.  The  struggle  for  in- 
dividual existence  disappears.  Then  for  the  first  tinie 
man,  in  a  certain  sense,  is  finally  marked  off  from  the 
rest  of  the  animal  kingdom,  and  emerges  from  mere 
animal  conditions  into  really  human  ones.  *  *  *  It 
is  the  ascent  of  man  from  the  kingdom  of  necessity  to 
the  kingdom  of  freedom. 

The  capitalist  countries  are  ruled  through  banks,  and 
a  bank  is  necessarily  an  institution  of  the  owning  class. 

Russia  is  ruled  through  industrial  Soviets,  and  such  a 
soviet  is  necessarily  an  institution  of  the  working  class. 

Banks  and  Soviets  are  so  many  headquarters  for  big 
unions.  In  capitalist  countries  the  banks  are  such  for 
the  one  big  union  of  the  owners,  and  in  Russia  the  Soviets 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  183 

are  this  for  the  one  big  union  of  the  workers.  These 
big  unions  cannot  coexist  and  flourish  in  the  same  coun- 
try. 

All  owners  everywhere  see  the  necessity  for  their  one 
big  union  and  in  all  capitaHstic  countries,  nowhere  more 
than  in  the  United  States,  they  have  the  advantage  of 
being  on  the  ground  floor  and  indeed  on  all  the  floors 
of  all  the  sky  scrapers  with  their  union,  which  is  the 
most  universally  inclusive  and  the  most  relentlessly 
efficient  organization  on  earth. 

Some  workers  everywhere  see  the  necessity  for  their 
one  big  union,  but  nowhere  is  it  seen  as  generally  and 
clearly  as  in  Russia,  the  only  country  in  which  the  work- 
ers have  held  the  ground  floor  for  any  considerable  time 
against  all  comers. 

In  all  countries  a  beginning  has  been  made  by  the 
workers  in  laying  the  foundation  for  their  one  big  union, 
but  in  only  one  country,  Russia,  has  progress  been  made 
with  the  superstructure,  and  here  as  everywhere  the 
owners  have  hindered  the  workers  so  that  they  must  de- 
fend themselves  with  their  right  hand  while  they  build 
with  their  left.  Nevertheless  wonderful  progress  is 
being  made  and  when  the  industrial  structure  has  been 
completed,  as  it  soon  must  be,  el§p  the  world  is  doomed 
to  destruction,  it  shall  tower  above  its  capitalist  rival  as 
i  mountain  over  a  foot  hill. 

After  all,  the  power  of  the  owner  is  money  and  it  is 
not  a  real  potentiality,  for  within  the  social  realm  there 
is  in  reality  only  one  potentiality,  the  power  of  pro- 
ductivity which  exclusively  belongs  to  the  worker. 

In  the  sky  there  is  no,  god,  and  on  earth  there  is  no 
king  or  priest  like  unto  Labor,  the  lord  of  gods,  the  tzar 
of  kings  and  the  pope  of  priests. 

Labor  is  high  above  all  potentialities.  The  motto, 
"All  Power  to  the  Workers,"  which  the  class-conscious 
proletarians  inscribe  on  their  banners,  is  not  the  ex- 
pression of  an  ideal  fiction,  but  the  declaration  of  a 
practical  reality,  the  greatest  among  all  realities,  that 
reality  in  which  the  whole  social  realm  lives,  moves  and 
has  its  being. 


184      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

III.    GOD  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

We  have  done  with  the  kisses  that  sting, 
With  the  thief's  mouth  red  from  the  feast, 
With  the  blood  on  the  hands  of  the  king, 
And  the  lie  on  the  lips  of  the  priest. 

— Swinburne. 

Many  critics  contend  that  socialism  and  supernat- 
uralism  are  not,  as  I  represent,  incompatibilities;  but 
they  lose  sight  of  four  facts:  (1)  this  is  a  scientific 
^S^>  (2)  Marxian  socialism  is  one  of  the  sciences; 
(3)  the  vast  majority  of  men  of  science  reject  all 
supernaturalism,  including  of  course  the  gods  and 
devils  with  their  heavens  and  hells,  and  (4)  only  in 
the  case  of  two  pi  the  sciences,  biology  and  psy- 
chology, is  this  majority  greater  than  in  the  science  of 
sociology. 

The  truth  of  the  last  two  of  these  representations 
will  be  overwhelmingly  evident^  from  the  chart  on 
the  next  page.  It  and  its  explanation  given  in  the  fol- 
lowing quotation  is  taken  with  the  kind  consent  of  the 
author  and  also  of  the  publishers  of  a  book  entitled 
God  and  Immortality,  by  Professor  James  H.  Leuba, 
the  Psychologist  of  Bryn  Mawr  College.  This  book 
is  having  a  great  influence  and  I  strongly  recom- 
mend it  to  all  who  think  that  I  am  wrong  in  the 
contention  that  conscious,  personal  existence  is  limited 
to  earth;  that,  therefore,  we  are  having  all  that  we 
shall  ever  know  of  heaven  and  hell,  here  and  now,  and 
that  whether  we  have  more  of  heaven  and  less  of  hell 
depends  altogether  upon  men  and  women,  not  at  all 
upon  gods  and  devils.  The  second  edition  of  Professor 
Leuba's  book  is  now  in  the  press  of  The  Open  Court 
Publishing  Company,  182  South  Michigan  Ave.,  Chi- 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED 


85 


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contentions: 


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§ 


I  §i 


is  the  quotation  in  support  of  our 


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SNVIiiOJL$IH\ 

p       p       ^       ^       O     I  <^ 
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USIOOlOHDA^d 


illll  1 

\\l 

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S1SUN3IDS  IVDiSAHd 


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186      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

What,  then,  is  the  main  outcome  of  this  research? 
Chart  XI,  Partial  Summary  of  Results,  shows  that  in 
every  class  of  persons  investigated,  the  number  of  be- 
lievers in  God  is  less,  and  in  most  classes  very  much  less 
than  the  number  of  non-believers,  and  that  the  number 
of  believers  in  immortality  is  somewhat  larger  than  in  a 
personal  God;  that  among  the  more  distinguished,  un- 
belief is  very  much  more  frequent  than  among  the  less 
distinguished;  and  finally  that  not  only  the  degree  of 
ability,  but  also  the  kind  of  knowledge  possessed,  is  sig- 
nificantly related  to  the  rejection  of  these  beliefs. 

The  correlation  shown,  without  exception,  in  every 
one  of  our  groups  between  eminence  and  disbelief,  ap- 
pears to  me  of  momentous  significance.  In  three  of 
these  groups  (biologists,  historians,  and  psychologists) 
the  number  of  believers  among  the  men  of  greater  dis- 
tinction is  only  half,  or  less  than  half  the  number  of  be- 
lievers among  the  less  distinguished  men.  I  do  not  see 
any  way  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  disbelief  in  a  per- 
sonal God  and  irt  personal  immortality  is  directly  pro- 
portional to  abilities  making  for  success  in  the  sciences 
in  question. 

A  study  of  the  several  charts  of  this  work  with  regard 
to  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  favors  disbelief  shows 
that  the  historians  and  the  physical  scientists  provide  the 
greater;  and  the  psychologists,  the  sociologists  and  the 
biologists,  the  smaller  number  of  believers.  The  ex- 
planation I  have  offered  is  that  psychologists,  sociologists, 
and  biologists  in  very  large  numbers  have  come  to  recog- 
nize fixed  orderliness  in  organic  and  psychic  life,  and  not 
merely  in  inorganic  existence;  while  frequently  physical 
scientists  have  recognized  the  presence  of  invariable  law 
in  the  inorganic  world  only.  The  belief  in  a  personal  God 
as  defined  for  the  purpose  of  our  investigation  is,  there- 
fore, less  often  possible  to  students  of  psychic  and  of  or- 
ganic life  than  to  physical  scientists. 

The  place  occupied  by  the  historians  next  to  the  phys- 
ical scientists  would  indicate  that  for  the  present  the 
reign  of  lav/  is  not  so  clearly  revealed  in  the  events  with 
which  history  deals  as  in  biology,  economics,  and  psy- 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  187 

chology.  A  large  number  of  historians  continue  -to  see 
the  hand  of  God  in  human  affairs.  The  influence,  de- 
structive of  Christian  beliefs,  attributed  in  this  interpre- 
tation to  more  intimate  knowledge  of  organic  and  psy- 
chic life,  appears  incontrovertibly,  as  far  as  psychic  life 
is  concerned,  in  the  remarkable  fact  that  whereas  in 
every  other  group  the  number  of  believers  in  immortality 
is  greater  than  that  in  God,  among  the  psychologists  the 
reverse  is  true;  the  number  of  believers  in  immortality 
among  the  greater  psychologists  sinks  to  8.8  per  cent. 
One  may  affirm  it  seems  that,  in  general,  the  greater  the 
ability  of  the  psychologist,  the  more  difficult  it  becomes 
for  him  to  believe  in  the  continuation  of  individual  life 
after  bodily  death.  ^ 

Within  the  generation  to  which  I  belong,  Darwin 
and  Marx,  the  greatest  teachers  that  the  world  has 
had,  went  oyer  the  top  of  entrenched  ignorance  with 
the  greatest  books  of  the  world,  worth  infinitely  more 
to  it  than  all  of  its  bibles  together.  Darwin  did  this 
in  1859  with  his  Origin  of  Species  by  Natural  Selec- 
tion, and  Marx  in  1867  with  his  Capital,  a  Critique  of 
Political  Economy. 

Darwin,  with  his  book,  is  driving  the  Christian 
church  out  of  its  trench  of  supernaturalism  and 
uniqueism  by  showing  that  the  different  kinds  of 
vegetable  and  animal  life  are  not,  according  to  the 
representation  of  its  bible,  so  many  separate  creations 
by  a  personal,  conscious  divinity,  but  interrelated 
evolutions  by  an  impersonal,  unconscious  nature,  the 
higher  out  of  the  lower,  and  that,  therefore,  man  is  so 
far  from  being  a  special  creation,  having  his  most 
vital  relationships  with  a  celestial  divinity  and  his 
most  glorious  prospects  in  a  heavenly  place  with  him, 
that  he  is  really  more  or  less  closely  related  to  every 


188      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

living  thing  on  earth,  and  is  as  hopelessly  limited  to 
it,  as  an  elephant,  a  tree  or  even  a  mountain. 

Marx  with  his  book  is  driving  the  states  out  of  the 
trench  of  imperialism  and  capitalism. 

As  Darwin  is  driving  the  conscious,  personal  gods 
out  of  the  realm  of  biology,  placing  all  animal  and 
human  life  of  body,  mind  and  soul  on  essentially  the 
same  footing,  so  Marx  is  driving  all  such  divinities 
out  of  the  realm  of  sociology,  placing  all  life  of 
family,  state,  church,  lodge,  store  and  shop  on  essen- 
tially the  same  level. 

According  to  Darwin,  all  animal  life  is  what  it  is 
at  any  time  by  reason  of  the  effort  to  accommodate 
the  physical  organism  to  its  environment. 

According  to  Marx,  human  civiliaation  is  what  it  is 
at  any  time  because  of  the  economic  system  by  which 
people  feed,  clothe  and  house  themselves. 

This  Darwinian-Marxian  interpretation  of  ter- 
restrial life  in  general,  and  of  the  human  part  of  it  in 
particular,  is  known  as  materialism.  It  is  the  ma- 
terialistic, naturalistic,  levelistic  interpretation  by 
Marxian  socialists  of  history,  and  differ*  fundamen- 
tally from  the  spiritualistic,  supernaturalistic,  unique- 
istic  interpretation  of  it  by  Christian  preachers.  The 
contrast  between  these  interpretations  is  especially 
strong  in  the  case  of  human  history. 

On  the  one  hand  the  Christian  preacher  says,  man's 
history  is  what  it  is  because  of  the  directing  provi- 
dence of  a  God,  the  Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  and  be- 
cause of  His  directing  inspiration  of  great  leaders, 
such  as  Washington,  Luther,  Caesar  and  Moses. 

On  the  other  hand  Darwin  and  Marx  agree  in  say- 
ing that  both  the  triune  god  and  the  inspired  leader 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  189 

are  what  they  are,  because  society  is  what  it  is;  that, 
again,  the  character  of  society  depends  upon  the 
economic  system  by  which  it  feeds,  clothes  and 
houses  itself,  and  that  finally  all  such  systems  owe 
their  existence  to  the  machinery  in  use  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  basic  necessities  of  life,  the  primal  ma- 
chine being  the  human  hand  to  which  all  other  ma- 
chines are  auxiliaries. 

The  most  insatiable  and  universal  among  all  hu- 
man longings  is  for  freedom — freedom  from  economic 
want,  social  inequality  and  imperialistic  tyranny,  also 
freedom  to  learn,  think,  live  and  teach  truths. 

Socialism  of  the  Marxian  type  is  the  gospel  of  free- 
dom, because  a  classless  god,  nature,  reveals  it  in  the 
interest  of  a  classless  world:  therefore,  it  is  true,  and 
slavery,  of  which  there  never  was  so  much  before  on 
.the  earth,  and  nowhere  is  there  more  than  in  the 
United  States,  is  utterly  incompatible  with  truth, 
and  classless  interests. 

All  the  supernaturalistic  gospels  are  revealed  by  a 
class  god  (Jesus,  Jehovah,  Allah,  Buddha)  in  the 
interest  of  the  capitalist  class:  therefore,  they  are 
false,  and  freedom  is  utterly  incompatible  with  false- 
hood and  class  interest. 

Ignorance  is  the  destroyer-god  and  capitalism  is 
the  diabolical  scourge  by  which  he  afflicts  the  wage- 
earner  with  many  unnecessary  sufferings,  especially 
the  crushing  ones  arising  from  the  great  trinity  of 
evils,  war,  poverty  and  slavery. 

Knowledge  is  the  saviour-god  and  Marxism  is  his 
divine  gospel  of  freedom  from  these  capitalistic  suf- 
ferings. 


190       COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

IV.    MYTHICAL  CHARACTER  OF  OLD  AND 
NEW  TESTAMENT  PERSONAGES. 

What  man  of  sense  will  agree  with  the  statement  that 
the  first,  second,  and  third  days,  in  which  the  evening  is 
named  and  the  morning,  were  without  sun,  moon  and 
stars?  What  man  is  found  such  an  idiot  as  to  suppose 
that  God  planted  trees  in  Paradise  like  an  husbandman? 
I  believe  that  every  man  must  hold  these  things'  for 
images  under  which  a  hidden  sense  is  concealed. — ^Origen. 

One  of  the  critics  of  Communism  and  Christianism 
whose  representations  are  in  alignment  with  several 
others  says: 

While  the  Bishop  speaks  in  the  language  of  scholar- 
ship, he  entirely  ignores  all  the  findings  of  modern 
scholars  on  the  literature  of  the  Bible. 

The  failure  to  show  more  clearly  that  my  represen- 
tations concerning  the  untenableness  of  the  basic  doc- 
trines of  Christian  supernaturalism  are  in  alignment 
with  the  conclusions  of  outstanding  authorities  in  the 
newly  developed  sciences  of  historical  and  biblical 
criticisms  is,  indeed,  a  defect,  and  an  attempt  will  here 
be  made  to  remove  it  by  a  short  but  faithful  and,  as  I 
think,  convincing  summary  of  what  such  authorities 
in  these  sciences  have  to  say  on  the  subject. 

My  summary  is  summarized  from  a  pamphlet  by 
Charles  T.  Gorham,  published  by  Watts  and  Com- 
pany, 17  Johnson's  Court,  Fleet  St.,  London,  E.  C.  4, 
England,  which  is  itself  an  able  summarization  of  the 
relevant  facts  which  have  been  scientifically  estab- 
lished as  they  are  given  in  the  greatest  of  all  the  Bible 
Dictionaries,  the  Encyclopedia  Biblica. 

It  will  be  seen  that  all  except  one  among  my  con- 
tentions  concerning  the  baselessness   of  the   super- 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  *  191 

naturalism  of  orthodox  Christians  are  well  sustained. 
This  exception  is  the  contention  that  Jesus  is  not  an 
historical  personage,  but  a  fictitious  one.  However 
the  great  critics  are  unanimously  with  me  even  in 
this,  for  two  crushing  facts  are  admitted  by  them: 
(1)  the  Old  Testament  affords  no  scientifically  estab- 
lished data  from  which  a  reliable  history  of  the  Jews 
can  be  written,  and  (2)  the  New  Testament  has  no 
such  data  for  a  biography  of  Jesus. 

The  illuminating  summary  which  is  a  large  part  of 
my  answer  to  the  criticism  under  review  follows,  and 
it  is  as  far  as  possible  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Gorham : 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  system  of  Christian 
Theology.  It  was  a  wonderful  though  a  highly  arti- 
ficial structure,  composed  of  fine  old  crusted  dogmas 
which  no  one  could  prove,  but  very  few  dared  to  dis- 
pute. There  was  the  "magnified  man"  in  the  sky,  the 
Infallible  Bible,  dictated  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Trinity, 
the  Fall,  the  Atonement,  Predestination  and  Grace,  Jus- 
tification by  Faith,  a  Chosen  People,  a  practically  om- 
nipotent Devil,  myriads  of  Evil  Spirits,  an  eternity  of 
bliss  to  be  obtained  for  nothing,  and  endless  torment  for 
those  who  did  not  avail  themselves  of  the  offer. 

Now  the  house  of  cards  has  tumbled  to  pieces,  or 
rather  it  is  slowly  dissolving,  as  Shakespeare  says,  "like 
the  baseless  fabric  of  a  dream."  The  Biblical  chronology, 
history,  ethics,  all  are  alike  found  to  be  defective  and 
doubtful.  Divine  Revelation  has  become  discredited;  a 
Human  Record  takes  its  place.  What  has  brought  about 
this  startling  change?  The  answer  is.  Knowledge. 
Thought,  research,  criticism,  have  shown  that  the  tra- 
ditional theories  of  the  Bible  can  no  longer  be  main- 
tained." The  logic  of  facts  has  confirmed  the  reasonings 
of  the  independent  thinker,  and  placed  the  dogmatist  in 
a  dilemma  which  grows  ever  more  acute.  The  result  is 
not  pleasant  for  the  believer ;  but  it  is  well  that  the  real 


192  •    COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

state  of  things  should  be  known,  that  the  kernel  of  truth 
should  be  separated  from  the  overgrown  husk  of  tra- 
dition. 

During  the  last  few  years  a  work  has  been  issued 
which  sums  up  the  conclusions  of  modern  criticism  bet- 
ter than  any  other  book.  It  is  called  the  Encyclopedia 
Biblica,  and  its  four  volumes  tersely  and  ably  set  forth 
the  new  views,  and  support  them  by  a  mass  of  learning 
which  deserves  serious  consideration.  And  the  most 
significant  thing  about  it  is  not  merely  that  the  entire 
doctrinal  system  of  Christianity  has  undergone  a  radi- 
cal change,  but  that  this  change  has  largely  been  brought 
about  by  Christian  scholars  themselves.  A  rapid  glance 
at  this  store-house  of  the  heresy  of  such  scholars  will  give 
the  reader  some  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  surrender 
which  Christianity  has  made  to  the  forces  of  Rational- 
ism. It  must  be  premised  that  space  will  permit  of  the 
conclusions  only  being  given,  without  the  detailed  evi- 
dence by  which  they  are  supported. 

Let  us  begin  with  our  supposed  first  parents.  Is  the 
story  of  Adam  and  Eve  a  true  story?  There  are,  we 
are  told,  decisive  reasons  why  we  cannot  regard  it  as 
historical  and  probably  the  writer  himself  never  sup- 
posed he  was  relating  history.* 

The  Creation  story  originated  jn  a  stock  of  primitive 
myths  common  to  the  Semitic  races,  and  passed  through 
a  long  period  of  development  before  it  was  incorporated 
in  the  book  of  Genesis.  If,  then,  it  is  the  fact,  as  Chris- 
tian scholars  assert,  that  this  story  of  the  Creation  origi- 
nated in  a  pagan  myth,  and  was  shaped  and  altered  by 
unknown  hands  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  it  is  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  superstition  to  hold  that  it  is 
divinely  true. 

As  for  the  Old  Testament  patriarchs,  we  now  learn 
that  their  very  existence  is  uncertain.  The  tradition 
concerning  Abraham  is,  as  it  stands,  inadmissible ;  he  is 

*But  if  Adam  and  Eve  are  not  historical  personages  there  is 
no  doctrine  of  supernaturalistic  Christianism  resting  on  the 
solid  ground  of  facts  and  the  whole  of  its  immense  dogmatic 
structure  is  floating  in  the  air  of  theories  and  myths. — W.  M.  B. 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  193 

not  so  much  a  historical  personage  as  an  ideal  type  of 
character,  whose  actual  existence  is  as  doubtful  as  that 
of  other  heroes.  All  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs  are 
legendary. 

The  whole  book  of  Genesis,  in  fact,  is  not  history  at 
all,  as  we  understand  history.  Exodus  is  another  com- 
posite legend  which  has  long  been  mistaken  for  history. 

The  historical  character  of  Moses  has  not  been  estab- 
lished, and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  name  is  that  of  an 
individual  or  that  of  a  clan.  The  story  of  his  being  ex- 
posed in  an  ark  of  bulrushes  is  a  myth,  probably  derived 
from  the  similar  and  much  earlier  myth  of  Sargon.* 

Turning  to  the  New  Testament,  we  find  that  modern 
critical  research  only  brings  out  more  clearly  than  ever 
the  extraordinary  vagueness  and  uncertainty  which  en- 
shroud every  detail  of  the  narrative.  From  the  article 
on  Chronology  we  learn  that  everything  in  the  Gos- 
pels is  too  uncertain  to  be  accepted  as  historical  fact. 
There  are  numerous  questions  which  it  is  "wholly  im- 
possible to  decicC:."  We  do  not  know  when  Jesus  was 
born,  or  when  he  died,  or  who  was  his  father,  or  what 
was  the  duration  of  his  ministry.  As  these  are  matters 
on  which  the  Gospel  writers  purport  to  give  information, 
the  fact  of  their  failure  to  do  so  settles  the  question  of 
their  competency  as  historians. 

The  supposed  supernatural  birth  of  Jesus  has  of  late 
exercised  the  minds  of  theologfians.  *  It  is  not  surprising 
that  some  of  them  should  reject  the  notion,  for  it  is  one 
without  a  shred  of  evidence  in  its  favor.  Setting  aside 
the  well-known  fact  that  many  other  religions  assume  a 
similar  origin  for  their  founders,  we  may  note  the  New 
Testament  accounts  are  in  such  hopeless  conflict  with 
each  other  that  reconciliation  is  impossible. 

The  important  subject  of  the  Resurrection  is  treated 
by  Professor  P.  W.  Schmiedel,  of  Zurich,  who  tells  us 
that  the  Gospel  accounts  "exhibit  contradictions  of  the 
most  glaring  kind." 

'It  is  questionable  whether  such  persons  as  Samson,  Jonah 
and  Daniel  ever  livpd,  but  unquestionably  their  adventures  are 
as  mythical  as  anything  in  Aesop's  Fables. — W.  }A.  B. 


194      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

The  article  on  the  Gospels  by  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott  and 
Professor  Schmiedel  is  crammed  with  criticism  of  a  kind 
most  damaging  to  every  form  of  the  orthodox  faith. 
The  view  hitherto  current,  that  the  four  Gospels  were 
written  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  and  ap- 
peared thirty  or  forty  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus, 
can,  it  is  stated,  no  longer  be  maintained. 

The  alleged  eclipse  of  the  sun  at  the  Crucifixion  is  im- 
possible. One  of  the  orthodox  shifts  respecting  this 
phenomenon  is  that  it  was  an  eclipse  of  the  moon ! 

Modem  criticism  decides  that  no  confidence  whatever 
can  be  placed  in  the  reliability  of  the  Gospels  as  historical 
narratives,  or  in  the  chronology  of  the  events  which  they 
relate.  It  may  even  seem  to  justify  a  doubt  whether  any 
credible  elements  at  all  are  to  be  found  in  them.  Yet  it 
is  believed  that  some  such  credible  elements  do  exist. 
Five  passages  prove  by  their  character  that  Jesus  was  a 
real  person,  and  that  we  have  some  trustworthy  facts 
about  him.  These  passages  are:  Matthew  xii.  31, 
Mark  x.  17,  Mark  iii.  21,  Mark  xiii.  33,  and  Mark  xv.  34, 
and  the  corresponding  passage  in  Matthew  xxvii.  46, 
though  these  last  two  are  not  found  in  Luke.  Four  other 
passages  have  a  high  degree  of  probability — viz.,  Mark 
viii.  12,  Mark  vi.  5,  Mark  viii.  14-21,  and  Matthew  xi. 
5,  with  the  corresponding  passage  in  Luke  vii.  22.  These 
texts,  however,  disclose  nothing  of  a  supernatural  char- 
acter. They  merely  prove  that  in  Jesus  we  have  to  do 
with  a  completely  human  being,  and  that  the  divine  is 
to  be  sought  in  him  only  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  capa- 
ble of  being  found  in  all  men.* 

The  four  Gospels  were  compiled  from  earlier  materials 

*But  these  nine  texts  which  for  some  years  were  often 
triumphantly  pointed  to  as  the  pillars  upon  which  securely  rested 
the  historicalness  of  Jesus  as  a  man  are  now  lying  in  the  dust 
where  the  learned  and  brilliant  Professor  William  Benjamin 
Smith  of  Tulane  University  put  them  by  his  great  contribution 
to  the  Christological  problem  in  a  book,  entitled  Elcce  Deus  in 
which  he,  as  I  think,  proves  conclusively  tb=it  the  Jesus  of  the 
New  Testament  never  was  a  real  man  but  always  an  imaginary 
god,  the  Christian  recasting  of  the  Jewish  God.  a  new  Jehovah. 
— W.  M.  3.    - 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  195 

which  have  perished,  and  the  dates  when  they  first  ap- 
peared in  their  present  form  are  given  as  follows: — 
Mark,  certainly  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in 
the  year  70;  Matthew,  about  119  A.  D. ;  Luke,  between 
100  and  110;  and  John,  between  132  and  140. 

The  question  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Pauline  Epis- 
tles, is  now  far  from  being  so  clear  as  was  once  univer- 
sally supposed.  Advanced  criticism,  Professor  Van  Ma- 
nen  tells  us  in  his  elaborate  article  on  Paul,  has  learned 
to  recognize  that  none  of  these  Epistles  are  by  him,  not 
even  the  four  generally  regarded  as  unassailable.  They 
are  not  letters  to  individuals,  but  books  or  pamphlets 
emanating  from  a  particular  school.  We  know  little,  in 
reality,  of  the  facts  of  Paul's  life,  or  of  his  death:  all  is 
uncertain.  The  unmistakable  traces  of  late  origin  indi- 
cate that  the  Epistles  probably  did  not  appear  till  the 
second  century. 

The  strange  book  of  Revelation  is  not  of  purely  Chris- 
tian origin.  Criticism  has  clearly  shown  that  it  can  no 
longer  be  regarded  as  a  literary  unit,  but  it  is  an  admix- 
ture of  Jewish  with  Christian  ideas  and  speculations. 
Ancient  testimony,  that  of  Papias  in  particular,  assumed 
the  Presbyter  John,  and  not  the  Apostle,  as  its  author  or 
redactor. 

The  Epistles  of  Peter,  James  and  Jude  are  none  of 
them  held  to  be  the  work  of  the  Apostles.  They  prob- 
ably first  saw  the  light  in  the  second  century ;  the  second 
Epistle  of  Peter  may  even  belong  to  the  latter  half  of 
that  period. 

All  the  above  conclusions  are  summarized,  as  nearly 
as  may  be,  in  the  words  of  the  authors  of  the  respective 
articles!  Their  significance  is  surely  enormous.  Right 
or  wrong,  eminent  Christian  scholars  here  proclaim  re- 
sults in  complete  antagonism  to  the  ideas  usually  accept- 
ed as  forming  the  true  basis  of  the  Christian  faith.  They 
amount,  in  fact,  to  a  complete  and  unconditional  sur- 
render of  the  whole  dogmatic  framework  which  has  hith- 
erto been  held  as  divinely  revealed,  and  therefore  di- 
vinely true. 


196      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 
NOTE  ON  THE  GRANT-MANNING  CONTROVERSY. 

I  have  recently  been  examining  all  the 
known  superstitions  of  the  world,  and  do 
not  find  in  our  particular  superstition 
(Christianity)  one  redeeming  feature. 
They  are  all  alike,  founded  upon  fables 
and  mythologies. 

— Thomas   Jefferson. 

Since  the  publication  of  the  seventh  edition  of  this  booklet, 
one  of  the  most  learned  and  brilliant  among  the  clergy  of  the 
Episcopal  church,  the  Rev.  Dr.  McConnell,  published  a  book 
in  which  he  questions  the  truth  of  the  representations  of  the 
Bible  concerning  miracles  in  general  and  in  particular  those 
upon  which  is  rested  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus. 
Later  several  influential  priests  of  this  church  organized  a 
league  for  securing  the  right  to  interpret  the  Bible  in  align- 
ment with  science.  Finally,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Grant,  the  distin- 
guished Rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascension,  New^  York 
City,  announced  it  to  be  his  conviction  that  Jesus  was  not 
possessed  of  the  power  of  God;  that  he  was  not  born  of  a 
virgin;  that  he  did  not  walk  on  water,  nor  supernaturally  cure 
the  sick;  and,  when  the  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Manning,  Bishop  of  New 
York,  demanded  that  he  renounce  these  heresies  or  resign  his 
rectorship,  he  reiterated  them  with  additions.  Bishop  Manning 
then  said  some  brave  words  about  the  trial  of  any  minister  in 
the  Episcopal  church,  bishop,  priest  or  deacon,  who  clearly 
denied  the  divinity  of  Jesus;  but,  in  the  end,  he  abandoned 
his  case  against  Dr.  Grant.  The  excuse  given  for  not  trying 
heretics  was,  in  Dr.  McConnell's  case,  that  he  is  without  a 
parish;  in  Dr.  Grant's,  that  his  heresies  were  not  clearly 
stated,  and  in  mine,   that  I  am  crazy. 

One  real  reason  for  the  failure  of  the  bishops  to  bring 
heretics  to  trial  is  the  fact  that  the  supernaturalism  of  ortho- 
dox Christianism  has  become  an  impossibility.  Its  core  is  be- 
lief in  two  Adams,  a  first,  hand-made,  breath-inflated,  human 
Adam,  the  old  head  of  the  race  of  man;  who,  by  disobedience, 
brought  death  to  every  living  thing  and  destined  all  men  to 
an  eternity  of  woe  in  a  hell  with  a  lake  of  fire;  and  a  second, 
virgin-born,  divine  Adam,  the  new  head;  who,  by  his  incar- 
nation and  atoning  death,  descension  into  hell,  resurrection 
from  the  dead  and  ascension  into  heaven,  redeemed  hun\anity 
from  this  fate  and  made  an  eternity  of  bliss  in  a  celestial  city 
with  buildings  of  precioius  stones  and  streets  of  shimmering 
gold  possible  to  all.  The  death  which  is  an  inheritance  from 
the  first  Adam  is  transmitted  from  him  through  natural  births 
to  all  his  posterity.  The  virgin-birth  of  Jesus  was  necessary 
to  his  becoming  the  second  Adam  without  sin.    The  life  which 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  197 

is  a  gift  from  the  second  Adam  is  transmitted  from  him  as  the 
result  of  the  marriage  of  himself  with  the  church,  issuing  in 
spiritual   rebirths. 

This  is  the  essence  of  the  Christian  faith,   but  some  of  it  is  ■ 
not  now  believed  even  in  the  House  of  Bishops:  therefore,   the 
trying  of  Drs.    McConnell  and  Grant  by  their  bishops,    and  of 
me  by  my  peers  for  heresy  would  be  like  pots  bringing  kettles 
to  trial  for  blackness. 

Another  real  reason  for  these  failures  or  the  authorities  to 
act  is  the  fact  that  they  are  servants  of  mammon.  Marx  made 
a  profoundly  true  observation  when,  in  effect,  he  said  of  our 
Anglican  bishops  that  they  would  prefer  the  denying  of  thirty- 
eight  of  the  thirty-nine  articles  of  religion  to  the  losing  of 
one-thirty-ninth  of  the  incomes  to  their  diocesan  and  national 
churches. 

Comrades  from  all  parts  of  the  country  kindly  sent  me 
clippings  concerning  the  Grant-Manning  controversy.  One 
article  by  an  admiring  writer  is  illustrated  with  a  picture  of 
Luther  and  Grant  and  credits  him  with  also  starting  a  great 
religious  reformation,  which  will  issue  in  a  political  revolution. 
The  reformation  in  the  church  had  nothing  to  do  with  that  in 
the  state.  Neither  the  reformation  in  church  nor  state  would 
have  taken  place  but  for  the.  economic  development  due  to  the 
supplanting  of  hand-tools  ^sy  machine-tools.  All  great  changes 
within  the  social  realm  have  been  brought  about  by  corre- 
sponding ones  in  an  econpmic  system. 

There  are  three  answers  to  the  question,  what  think  ye  of 
Christ:  (I)  the  Trinitarian  answer  of  theistic  traditionalism, 
for  which  Bishop  Manning  stands:  He  was  God  incarnate  in 
man;  (2)  the  Unitarian  answer  of  theistic  modernism,  for 
which  Dr.  Grant  stands:  He  was  the  greatest  among  men,  yet 
only  a  man,  and  (3)  the  Levelistic  answer  of  atheistic 
rationalism,  for  which  I  stand:  He  is  a  fiction;  and,  like  other 
saviour-gods,  only  a  symbol  of  the  sun,  the  real  saviour-god 
which  by  his  daily  and  yearly  deaths,  resurrections  and 
ascensions,  is  constantly  redeeming  the  world  from  the  hells 
of  night  and  winter  to  the  heavens  of  day  and  summer. 

Bishop  Manning's  second  Adam,  Jesus,  and  King  Tutank- 
hamen's second  Adam,  Osiris,  are  alike  only  symbols  under 
which  the  king  did  and  the  bishop  does  worship  the  same 
great  fiction,  the  sun,  personified  as  saviour-god  in  human 
form.  This  is  the  wooden  and  worthless  faith  once  for  all 
delivered  to  the  orthodox  saints.  During  the  three  thousand 
years  between  the  king  and  bishop  it  has  hindered  rather  than 
helped  the  world  to  save  itself  from  the  great  evils  of 
ignorance,   war,   poverty   and   slavery. 

Bishop  Manning,  as  a  traditionalist,  accepts  all  the  repre- 
sentations of  the  Bible   concerning  the  first  and  second  Adams 


198       COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

as  so  many  facts.  Dr.  Grant,  as  a  modernist,  sifts  out  the 
supernaturalistic  ones  and  accepts  the  rest.  I,  as  a  rationalist, 
reject  all  as  facts  of  history  and  accept  them  as  symbols  of 
social  realities.  The  fall  of  the  first  Adam  is  for  me  the 
symbol  of  the  fall  of  the  working  class  into  slavery  to  the 
owning  class,  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  second  Adam  is  the 
symbol  of  the  sacrifices  of  the  slaves  for  their  masters.  Hell 
symbolizes  the  toil,  want,  suffering  and  degradation  of  the 
worker,  the  man  of  sorrows,  and  heaven  symbolizes  the  leisure, 
plenty,   happiness  and  exaltation  of  the  owner. 

The  school  of  critics  to  which  the  writers  of  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Biblica  belong,  occupies  a  half-way  position  as  to 
Jewish  and  Christian  origins,  which  will  ultimately  be  aban- 
doned for  that  of  another  school,  much  further  in  advance  of 
theirs  than  it  is  from  the  orthodox  one.  From  the  advanced 
position,  fortified  against  all  comers,  it  will  probably  be  pro- 
claimed that  there  was  not  a  verse  of  the  Old  Testament  writ- 
ten before  the  year  A.  D.  1 000,  nor  one  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment before  1 200,  and  that  both  were  pure  fabrications  by 
Mohammedan  heretics  who  first  made  these  Jewish  and 
Christian  restatements  of  the  ageless  and  limitless  sun-myth 
and  then  forged  the  historical  settings  for  them.  There  is  no 
independent  trace  of  either  setting  before  these  dates. 

While  the  Grant-Manning  controversy  was  on,  the  New  York 
World  asked  for  my  opinion  by  wire.  My  reply  contained 
the  whole  truth  as  I  see  it:  "Bishop  Manning  could  have  Dr. 
Grant  tried  and  deposed  for  denying  to  Jesus  the  power  of 
God.  Yet  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  would  not  only  agree 
with  Dr.  Grant  as  to  the  absence  of  this  power  in  Jesus,  but 
a  rapidly  growing  minority  will  agree  with  me,  that  there  are 
no  conscious,  personal  Gods  with  any  power.  All  the  Gods 
of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations  of  religion,  not  except- 
ing the  Christian,  are  on  a  footing  with  Santa  Claus  and 
Uncle  Sam.  They  are  all  right  as  poetic  symbols,  but  all 
wrong  as  prosaic  realities.  Where  have  the  Saviour-Gods  of 
the  world  been  since  1914?  If  Bishop  Manning  will  answer 
this  question,  he  v»rill  do  something  for  the  cause  of  orthodoxy, 
but  nothing  if  he  tries  Dr.  Grant." 

Under  one  pretext  or  another  trials  for  heresy  will,  if 
possible,  be  avoided,  especially  in  the  cases  of  heretics  who, 
like  Dr.  McConnell,  Dr.  Grant  and  myself,  are  able  to  put  up 
a  fight.  We  do  not  go  out  voluntarily  because,  having  spent  the 
prime  of  our  lives  in  preaching  the  lies  of  supernaturalistic 
traditionalism  from  the  house-tops  of  our  positions,  we  want 
during  their  fag  ends  to  retain  the  advantages  they  afford  in 
preaching  the  truths  of  naturalistic  scientism.  Anyhow,  why 
should  we  go  out  on  account  of  our  confessed  heresies,  if 
others  remain  in  notwithstanding  their  suppresst;d  ones? 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  199 

V.  WOULD  COMMUNISM  CHANGE  HUMAN 
NATURE? 

Capitalism  and  communism  differ  fundamentally  in 
that  the  former  always  has  sought  and  always  will 
seek  to  exercise  a  permanent  dictatorship,  whereas 
that  of  the  latter  is  to  constitute  the  temporary  bridge 
over  which  the  world  is  to  pass  from  the  economic 
system  under  which  commodities  are  competitively 
made  for  the  profit  of  the  few,  to  the  economic  system 
under  which  they  will  be  co-operatively  made  for  the 
use  of  the  many. 

It  is  contended,  with  much  show  of  reason,  that  the 
dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  will  not  lead  to  the 
goal,  because  human  nature  being  what  it  is  the 
slaves  will  automatically  develop  into  another  class 
of  masters. 

But  those  who  raise  this  contention  proceed  upon 
the  assumption  that  human  nature  is  a  constant  quan- 
tity so  that  it  cannot  be  essentially  changed  and  that 
it  has  made  the  economic  systems  what  they  have 
been. 

This  is  not  the  case.  Human  nature,  like  animal 
nature,  is  constantly  changing  and  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other  voluntarily  changes  itself,  but  both  are 
forced  to  change  by  the  development  of  new,  external 
conditions  and  by  the  necessity  of  conformity  to  them. 

Professor  Joseph  McCabe  observes  that  these  de- 
velopmeAs  and  conformities  were  so  many  revolu- 
tions and  that  the  man  who  says,  the  secret  of  pro- 
gress   is    evolution,    not   revolution,    may   be   talking 


200       COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

very    good    social    philosophy   but    he    is   not    talking 
science,  as  he  thinks. 

Darwin  discovered  that  animal  nature  changed  (for 
example  reptile  nature  changed  into  bird  nature)  be- 
cause of  changed  physical  environments  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  life  to  adapt  itself  to  them. 

Marx  discovered  that  human  nature  changed  from 
what  it  was  during  the  period  of  chatteldom  to  what 
it  was  during  serfdom  and  from  that  to  what  it  is 
under  capitalism  by  reason  of  the  diflference  in  the 
economic  systems  of  these  periods  by  which  the  world 
fed,  cloth&d  and  housed  itself  and  that  these  differ- 
ences are  in  turn  accounted  for  by  the  differences  in. 
the  machines  by  which  the  necessities  of  life  are  pro- 
duced. 

Thus  Darwin  explained  the  history  of  animal  life 
Avithout  the  hypothesis  of  a  divine  creator,  and  ^farx 
explained  the  history  of  mankind  without  the  hypo- 
thesis either  of  a  divine  ruler  or  human  leaders.  These 
Darwinian  and  Marxian  explanations  constitute  what 
is  known  as  the  materialistic  explanation  of  history. 

Marx  represented  that  capitalism  would  end  the 
class  struggle  and  issue  in  a  classless  world  because 
its  profiteering  system  of  production  and  distribution 
could  not  be  succeeded  by  another,  since  it  divides 
mankind  into  masters  who  are  ever  growing  less  nu- 
merous and  slaves  who  are  ever  growing  more  nu- 
merous, without  the  possibility  of  those  who  are  half 
capitalists  and  half  workers  rising  out  of  t^eir  non- 
descript condition  into  a  new  master  class,  as  did  the 
bourgeoisie  under  feudalism.  For  these  reasons  he 
contended    the    working    slaves    would    become    the 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  201 

grave   diggers   for  the  owning  masters   and   so   end 
capitalism  with  the  burial  of  its  representatives. 

But  with  the  complete  and  sustained  triumph  of  the 
working  class,  the  owning  class  will  rapidly  pass 
away,  as  is  now  the  case  With  it  in  Russia,  and  a  class- 
less' world  will  be  born  to  live  on  a  co-operative  in- 
stead of  a  competitive  basis,  in  a  heaven  instead  of  a 
hell. 


VI.    WHAT   WILL   BE  THE   FORM    OF   THE 
WORKERS'  STATE? 


Hail  Soviet  Russia,  the  first  Communist  Republic,  the 
land  of,  by  and  for  the  common  people.  We  greet  you, 
workers  and  peasants  of  Russia,  who  by  your  untold 
sacrifices,  by  your  determination  and  devotion,  are  trans- 
forming the  Russia  of  black  reaction,  of  the  domination  of 
a  few,  into  a  land  of  glorious  promises  for  all,  Comrades 
in  America,  watch  the  bright  dawn  in  the  Elast;  you  have 
but  your  chains  to  lose,  and  a  world  to  gain!— The 
Workers*  Council. 


In  general  outline  the  form  of  the  workers'  state 
will  be  that  of  the  Russian  Soviet  Republic,  and  what 
it  is  will  appear  from  the  following  semi-official  de- 
scription, the  briefest  and  clearest  of  any  which  I  have 
seen.  Its  authorship  is  unknown  to  me  but  I  know 
it  to  be  the  work  of  a  committee  of  which  Zinoviev, 
one  of  the  directing  and  inspiring  minds  of  the 
proletarian  movement  in  Russia,  was  a  member,  and 
it  may  fee  that  he  is  the  author.  Anyhow  it  is  an 
authoritative  classic  containing  the  information  for 
which  a  large  part  of^^he  world  has  been  waiting: 

We  have  before  us  the  example  of  the  Russian  Soviet 
Republic,  whose  structure,  in  view  of  the  conflicting  re- 


202      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

ports  printed  in  ©ther  countries,  it  may  be  useful  to  de- 
scribe briefly  here. 

The  unit  of  government  is  the  local  Soviet,  or  Council, 
of  Workers',  Red  Army,  and  Peasants'  Deputies. 

The  city  Workers*  Soviet  is  made  up  as  follows: 
Each  factory  elects  one  delegate  for  a  certain  number  of 
workers,  and  each  local  union  also  elects  delegates.  These 
delegates  are  elected  according  to  political  parties — or, 
if  the  workers  wish  it,  as  individual  candidates. 

The  Red  Army  delegates  are  chosen  hy  military  units. 

For  the  peasants,  each  village  has  its  local  Soviet, 
which  sends  del^^ates  to  the  Township  Soviet,  which  in 
turn  elects  to  the  County  Soviet,  and  this  to  the  Provin- 
cial Soviet. 

Nobody  who  employs  labor  for  profit  can  vote. 

Every  six  months  the  City  and  Provincial  Soviets 
elect  delegates  to  the  All-Russian  Congress  of  Soviets, 
which  is  the  supreme  governing  body  of  the  country. 
This  Congress  decides  upon  the  policies  which  are  to 
govern  the  country  for  six  months,  and  then  elects  a 
Central  Executive  Committee  of  two  hundred,  which  is 
to  carry  out  these  policies.  The  Congress  also  elects 
the  Cabinet — The  Council  of  People's  Commissars,  who 
are  heads  of  Government  Departments — or  People's 
Commissariats. 

The  People's  Commissars  can  be  recalled  at  any  time 
by  the  Central  Executive  Committee.  The  members  of 
all  Soviets  can  be  recalled  very  easily,  and  at  any  time, 
by  their  constituents. 

These  Soviets  are  not  only  Legislative  bodies,  but  also 
Executive  organs.  Unlike  Congress,  they  do  not  make 
the  law  and  leave  them  to  the  President  to  carry  out, 
but  the  members  carry  out  the  laws  themselves;  and 
there  is  no  Supreme  Court  to  say  whether  or  not  these 
laws  are  "constitutional." 

Between  the  All-Russian  Congresses  of  Soviets  the 
Central  Executive  Committee  is  the  supreme  power  in 
Russia.  It  meets  at  least  every  two  months,  and  in  the 
meanwhile,  the  Council  of  People's  Commissars  directs 
the  country,  while  the  members  of  the  Central  Executive 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  203 

Committee  go  to  work  in  the  various  government  depart- 
ments. 

In  Russia  the  workers  are  organized  in  Industrial 
Unions,  all  the  workers  in  each  industry  belonging  to 
one  Union.  For  example,  in  a  factory  making  metal 
products,  even  the  carpenters  and  painters  are  members 
of  the  Metal  Workers'  Union.  Each  factory  is  a  local 
Union,  and  the  Shop  Committee  elected  by  the  workers 
is  its  Executive  Committee. 

The  All-Russian  Central  Executive  Committee  of  the 
federated  Unions  is  elected  by  the  annual  Trade  Union 
Convention.  A  Scale  Committee  elected  by  the  Con- 
vention fixes  the  wages  of  all  classes  of  workers. 

With  very  few  exceptions,  all  important  factories  in 
Russia  have  been  nationalized,  and  are  now  the  property 
of  all  the  workers  in  common.  The  business  of  the 
Union  is  therefore  no  longer  to  fight  the  capitalist,  but 
to  run  industry. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  Unions  works  the  Department 
of  Labor  of  the  Soviet  Crovemment,  whose  chief  is  the 
People's  Commissar  of  Labor,  elected  by  the  Soviet 
Congress  with  the  approval  of  the  Unions. 

In  charge  of  the  economic  life  of  the  country  is  the 
elected  Supreme  Council  of  People's  Economy,  divided 
into  departments,  such  as,  Metal  Department,  Chemical 
Department,  etc.,  each  one  headed  by  experts  and  work- 
ers, appointed,  with  the  approval  of  the  Union,  by  the 
Supreme  Council  of  People's  Economy. 

In  each  factory  production  is  carried  on  by  a  com- 
mittee consisting  of  three  members:  a  representative  of 
the  Shop  Committee  of  the  Unions,  a  representative  of 
the  Central  Executive  of  the  Unions,  and  a  representa- 
tive of  the  Supreme  Council  of  People's  Economy, 

The  Unions  are  thus  a  branch  of  the  government — 
and  this  government  is  the  most  highly  centralized  gov- 
ernment that  exists. 

It  is  also  the  most  democratic  government  in  history. 
For  all  the  organs  of  government  are  in  constant  touch 
with  the  working  masses,  and  constantly  sensitive  to 
their  will.    Moreover,  the  local  Soviets  all  over  Russia 


204      COMMUNISM  AND  GHRISTIANISM 

have  complete  autonomy  to  manage  their  own  local 
affairs,  provided  they  carry  out  the  national  policies  laid 
down  by  the  Soviet  Congress.  Also,  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment represents  only  the  workers,  and  cannot  help  but 
act  in  the  workers'  interests. 

Communist  Russia,  the  Russia  of  the  common  people, 
marks  a  new  epoch  in  the  world's  history.  It  marks  a 
basic  change  in  the  structure  of  human  society.  Up  to 
this  time  society  lived  under  the  rule  of  the  few,  under 
the  rule  of  the  class  which  possessed  the  wealth  of  the 
country.  The  methods  were  different  at  different  periods 
in  the  world's  history,  but  the  results  were  the  same: 
riches  and  power  for  the  few,  a  bare  existence  and  end- 
less toil  for  the  many.  The  slaves,  the  serfs,  or  the 
wage  workers  of  today,  who  compose  the  masses  of  the 
people,  have  ever  been  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the 
carriers  of  water,  the  beasts  of  burden  on  whose  backs 
sported  and  fattened  kings  and  nobles,  landlords  and 
capitalists.  They  who  possessed  wealth  had  the  power. 
And  they  passed  laws  to  protect  that  power,  to  make 
the  possession  of  wealth  a  social  institution.  Private 
property  was  enthroned  and  every  striving  of  mankind 
was  subjected  to  the  rule  of  property.  Thence  grew  the 
exploitation  of  man  by  man  for  private  profit,  and  all 
abuses  resulting  therefrom;  fear  of  loss  of  property,  care 
of  possession,  dread  of  the  future,  fear  of  loss  of  em- 
ployment, envy  and  greed.  Human  society  was  ruled 
by  property  grabbers ;  masters,  kings,  capitalists,  provid- 
ing toil,  disease,  war  for  the  masses  of  mankind.  That 
is  the  rule  of  capitalism,  and  cannot  be  otherwise. 

But  under  communism,  profit  is  aboifshed,  and  with 
it  the  exploitation  of  man  by  man;  private  property  is 
no  longer  a  factor  in  the  life  of  man ;  property  becomes 
universal,  all  natural  and  created  wealth  belong  to 
society,  to  every  member  of  the  community,  as  secure  a 
birthright  as  air  and  sunlight.  Everybody's  measured 
work  provides  a  common  fund  of  things  to  satisfy 
material  needs,  today,  tomorrow  and  in  years  to  come. 
There  can  be  no  fear  of  losing  one's  job,  of  seeing  one's 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  205 

children  starve,  of  the  poorhouse  in  old  age.  As  sure  as 
the  sun  will  rise  on  the  morrow,  man  is  secure  of  his 
bread,  his  shelter  and  clothing.  Man  is  freed  from 
animal  cares,  free  to  develop  his  human  qualities,  his  in- 
telligence, his  brain  and  heart. 

Russia  points  the  way.  Russia  is  now  one  huge  cor- 
poration, every  man,  woman  and  child  an  equal  share- 
holder. The  state  is  administered  as  a  business;  the 
benefit  of  the  stockholders  being  the  object  of  the  cor- 
poration. The  individual  contributes  his  labor,  what- 
ever it  may  be:  manual,  mental,  artist'ic.  This  labor  is 
applied  to  available  materials:  the  soil  of  the  farm, 
the  natural  resources,  the  mines,  and  mills  and  factories. 
The  finished  product  is  distributed  through  the  agencies 
of  the  corporation,  in  the  shape  of  food  and  clothes  and 
shelter,  of  education  and  amusement,  o€  protection  to 
life  and  limb,  of  literature  and  art,  of  inventions  and 
improvements  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  of  the 
nation. 

To  be  sure  this  ideal  of  a  human  brotherhood  is  not 
yet  realized  in  Russia.  No  sane  person  would  expect  so 
tremendous  a  change  to  the  consummated  in  a  few  years, 
in  the  face  of  universal  aggression,  intrigues,  blockades, 
and  famine.  It  may  take  ten  years,  perhaps  a  genera- 
tion. What  of  it !  Russia  is  past  the  most  difficult  period 
of  transition  from  the  capitalist  state  to  a  communist 
state,  while  other  capitalist  countries  must  still  face  the 
period  of  revolution.  Therefore  let  Russia  lead  the  way. 
I>et  the  workers  of  all  countries  realize  that  Russia's  fight 
is  their  fight,  that  Soviet  Russia's  success  is  the  success 
of  the  laboring  people  the  world  over! 

Have  you  ever  been  to  Crazy  Land,* 
s->  Down  on  the  Looney  Pike? 
There  are  the  queerest  people  there — 
You  never  saw  the  like ! 


*The  capitalist  countries  of  the  world  constitute  the  United 
States  of  Crazy  Lands. — W.  M.  B. 


206      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

The  ones  that  do  the  useful  work 

Are  poor  as  poor  can  be, 
And  those  who  do  no  useful  work 

All  live  in  luxury. 
They  raise  so  much  in  Crazy  Land 

Of  food  and  clothes  and  such, 
That  those  who  work  don't  have  enough 

Because  they  raise  too  much. 
They're  wrong  side  to  in  Crazy  Land, 

They're  upside  down  with  care — 
They  walk  around  upon  their  heads, 

With  feet  up  in  the  air. 

— Anonymous. 


VII.    COMMUNIST  INDICTMENT  OF  SUPER- 
NATURALISTIC  RELIGION. 

Never  have  anything  to  do  with  those  who  pre- 
tend to  have  dealings  with  the  supernatural.  If 
you  allow  supernaturalism  to  get  a  foothold  in  your 
country  the  result  will  be  a  dreadful  calamity. — - 
Confucius. 

How  little  the  church  serves  the  working  slaves, 
and  how  much  the  owning  masters,  will  appear  from 
the  following  representations  of  Roger  W.  Babson, 
the  well-known  financial  expert  and  adviser: 

The  value  of  our  investments  depends  not  on  the 
strength  of  our  banks,  but  rather  upon  the  strength  of 
our  churches.  The  underpaid  preachers  of  the  nation 
are  the  men  upon  whom  we  really  are  depending,  rather 
than  the  well-paid  lawyers,  bankers  and  brokers.  The 
religion  of  the  community  is  rej^ly  the  bulwark  of  our 
investments.  And  when  we  consider  that  only  15  per 
cent  of  the  people  hold  securities  of  any  kind  and  less 
than  3  per  cent  hold  enough  to  pay  an  income  tax,  the 
importance  of  the  churches  become  even  more  evident. 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  207 

For  our  sakes,  for  our  children's  sakes,  for  the  na- 
tion's sake,  let  us  business  men  get  behind  the  churches 
and  their  preachers.  Never  mind  if  they  are  not  perfect 
Never  mind  if  their  theology  is  out  of  date.  This  only 
means  that  were  they  efficient  they  would  do  very  much 
more.  The  safety  of  all  we  have  is  due  to  the  churches, 
even  in  their  present  inefficient  and  inactive  state.  By  all 
that  we  hold  dear,  let  us  from  this  very  day  give  more 
time,  money  and  thought  to  the  churches,  for  upon  these 
the  value  of  all  we  own  ultimately  depends. 

What  our  critics  say  about  the  recent  efforts  of  the 
American  churches  being  in  the  right  direction  is  in- 
teresting to  Mrs.  Brown  and  me,  but  we  are  much 
more  impressed  by  the  observation  of  a  writer  in  a 
late  issue  of  Soviet  Russia.  In  speaking  of  the  bane- 
ful influence  of  the  Russian  church  through  all  the 
ages  he  says: 

Out  of  the  shadows  of  antiquity,  from  the  morning  of 
man's  cupidity  and  avarice,  two  sinister  figures  have 
crawled  with  crooked  talons  through  history,  leaving  a 
trail  of  blood  and  fear  most  horrible  which  has  not 
halted  yet.  These  are  the  monarch  and  the  priest. 
The  one  is  symbolical  of  despotic  or  oligarchic  power, 
the  other  typifies  the  sordid  ignorance  and  fearful  super- 
stition of  the  credulous  masses  which  maintains  the 
power  of  the  first.  High  in  the  streets  of  Moscow, 
where  one  may  see  the  pallid,  long-haired,  degenerate- 
looking  venders  of  holy  lies  and  pious  impositions  shuf- 
fle along  like  spectres  from  a  remoter  age,  there  hangs  a 
woven  streamer  of  scarlet  hue  with  huge  white  lettering, 
which  defiantly  proclaims  that  religion  is  the  opium  of 
the  people. 

Though  many  still  cross  themselves  a  score  of  times 
daily  on  passing  the  church,  yet  nevertheless  the  people 
are  rapidly  assimilating  the  knowledge  which  elevates 
and  enlightens,  and  learning  to  reject  that  which  ter- 


208      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

rorizes  and  deforms  the  mind,  and  just  so  sure  as  the 
last  filthy  tyrant  has  been  placed  for  ever  beyond  mis- 
chief, so  will  the  last  priest  soon  vanish  from  the  land 
once  contemptuously  known  as  "Holy  Russia." 

The  foregoing  is  from  a  revolutionary  sympathizer 
with  Soviet  Russia  and  the  following  is  from  a  re- 
actionary criticizer  of  it,  but  both  are  to  the  same 
effect,  that  orthodox  Christianity  is  wholly  against 
the  interest  of  the  proletariat  and  entirely  for  that  of 
the  bourgeoise: 

One  of  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  Bolshevism 
is  its  pronounced  hatred  of  religion,  and  of  Christianity 
most  of  all.  To  the  Bolshevik,  Christianity  is  not  merely 
the  theory  of  a  mode  of  life  different  from  his;  own ;  it 
is  an  enemy  to  be  persecuted  and  wiped  out  of  existence. 

To  understand  this  is  not  difficult.  The  tendency  of 
the  Christian  religion  to  hold  before  the  believer  an  ideal 
of  a  life  beyond  death  is  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
ideal  of  Bolshevism,  which  tempts  the  masses  by  promis- 
ing the  immediate  realization  of  the  earthly  paradise. 
From  that  point  of  view  Christianity  is  not  only  n  false 
conception  of  life;  it  is  an  obstacle  to  the  realization  of 
the  Communist  ideal.  It  detaches  souls  from  the  objects 
of  sense  and  diverts  them  from  the  struggle  to  get  the 
good  things  of  this  life.  According  to  the  Bolshevist 
formula,  religion  is  opium  for  the  people:  and  serves  as 
a  tool  of  capitalist  domination. 

It  seems  to  us  that  we  see  two  fundamentally  im- 
portant facts  more  clearly  than  our  critics  see  them : 
(1)  the  first  step  in  the  way  of  salvation  for  the  pro- 
letariat is  class  consciousness,  and  (3)  the  Christian 
interpretation  of  supernaturalistic  religion  has  been, 
and  until  it  is  discredited,  will  continue  to  be  the  most 
efficient  among  the  many  preventives  to  this  con- 
sciousness. 


CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  209 

Let  me  show  this  to  be  the  case  by  an  experience 
which  I  had  some  years  ago  when  Mr.  Pierpont  Mor- 
gan, Senior,  was  at  the  height  of  his  glory,  as  the  king 
of  the  great  realm  of  big  business,  receiving  homage 
on  the  one  hand  from  the  Rockefellers  and  Roth- 
childs,  and  on  the  other  hand  from  the  Blockheads 
and  Henry  Dubbs  of  all  the  world. 

At  that  time  I  made  a  confirmation  visitation  for 
my  sick  episcopal  brother,  the  Bishop  of  New  York, 
to  what  was  popularly  known  as  Pierpont  Morgan's 
church  (St.  George's,  one  of  the  downtown  churches 
for  working  people).  He  was  the  senior  warden  of 
this  g^eat  parish  having  nearly-  5,000  communicants. 
He  went  with  the  collecting  procession  out  through 
the  great  congregation  and  back  to  the  chancel,  where 
each  collector  ceremoniously  emptied  the  contents  of 
his  basket  into  the  great  gold  zjms  basin  held  by  the 
rector. 

While  the  famous  financier  was  collecting  con- 
tributions from  obscure  toilers,  how  could  any, 
brought  up  as  I  was  and  as  nearly  all  in  the  congre- 
gation were,  see  that  capitalism  has  divided  humanity 
into  two  conflicting  classes  which  "have  nothing  in 
common,  the  working  class  and  the  employing  class, 
between  whjch  a  struggle  must  go  on  until  the  work- 
ers organize,  take  possession  of  the  earth  and  the  ma- 
chinery of  production  and  abolish  the  wage  system!" 

By  the  light  of  what  I  had  been  taught  all  along 
and  of  what  I  was  then  seeing  with  my  own  eyes 
from  the  bishop's  chair,  such  a  representation  would 
have  seemed  preposterous  and  what  was  true  of  me 
was  equally  so  of  all  present,  rector,  wardens,  ves- 
trymen, members  and  visitors. 


210      COMMUNISM  AND  CHRISTIANISM 

There  were  not  many  I.  W.  W.'s  in  those  days,  but 
if  one  had  been  there  and  upon  leaving  the  church 
had  made  a  representation  to  this  effect  to  a  fellow- 
worker  who  was  a  member  of  St.  George's,  would  not 
the  reply  have  been  something  as  follows : 

See  what  Pierpont  Morgan  and  I  have  in  common: 
the  same  God;  the  same  religion;  the  same  church; 
the  same  services  for  worship;  the  same  collection 
basket  in  which  he  puts  a  $100.00  bill  and  I  a  ten-cent 
piece;  the  same  Lord's  Supper  wJierc  we  eat  and 
drink  together;  and,  besides  all  this,  there  is  the  same 
hell  where  he  will  go  unless  he  gives  a  fair  day's 
wage  and  where  I  will  go  unless  I  do  a  fair  day's 
work,  and  the  same  heaven  where  both  will  go  to 
equally  glorious  mansions,  if  we  are  alike  100  per- 
centers in  church  and  state,  and  if  he  pays  me  liber- 
ally for  my  work  and  I  slave  hard  enough  for  his 
money. 

Assuming  the  truth  of  the  orthodox  interpretation 
of  the  Christian  religion,  this  conclusion  is  correct; 
but  it  is  not  true,  and  therefore,  Christianism  offers 
nothing  to  either  the  owners  or  workers  in  the  sky, 
for  its  god  and  heaven,  devil  and  hell  are  lies.  And 
neither  religious  Christianism  nor  political  Repub- 
licanism or  Democratism,  not  to  speak  of  the  other 
isms  of  religion  and  politics,  offers  the  workers  aught 
on  earth. 

Capitalism  is  the  god  of  this  world,  of  no  part  of 
it  more  than  of  these  United  States,  and  capitalism 
is  to  the  laborer  a  robbing,  lying,  murderous  devil, 
not  a  good  divinity. 


AFTERWORD. 

So  many  Gods,  so  many  Creeds, 

So  many  ways  that  wind  and  wind, 

When  all  this  sad  world  really  needs 
Is  just  the  art  of  being  kind. 

— Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox. 

I. 

My  title,  given  in  Latin  on  the  frontispiece,  is  be- 
stowed upon  me  by  some  in  jest  and  by  others  in  re- 
proach, and  I  am  accepting  it  from  each  as  a  compli- 
ment, because  it  proves  that  I  have  at  least  suc- 
ceeded in  making  clear  the  general  outlines  of  my 
new  religious  and  political  position. 

The  use  of  this  title  is  due  to  the  desire  that  those 
who  pick  up  the  booklet  should  not  buy  it,  much  less 
undertake  to  read  it,  under  a  mistaken  impression  as 
to  its  doctrinal  trends.  In  English  the  Latin  title  is, 
"Bishop  of  the  Countries  Belonging  to  the  Bolsheviki 
and  the  Infidels." 

Certain  fri€nds  greatly  fear  that  some  things  said 
in  this  booklet  may  fall  foul  of  the  criminal-syndical- 
ism laws.  I  have  carefully  read  those  of  Ohio  and 
believe  that^-.the  booklet  contains  nothing  which  is 
not  safely  within  them. 

Anyhow,  I  have  spoken  the  truth  about  super- 
naturalistic  religion  and  capitalistic  politics,  as  I  un- 
derstand them,  and  I  believe  that  I  have  adequately 
supported  all  my  representations  on  bases  of  relevant 
facts  which  cannot  be  gainsaid  or,  at  any  rate,  upon 


212  AFTERWORD 

sound  arguments  which  have  such  facts  for  their 
foundations. 

However,  I  am  trying  to  hold  myself  open  to  con- 
viction; and,  this  being  the  case,  if  "the  powers  that 
be"  in  state  or  church  feel  that  they  must  proceed 
against  me,  I  beg  that,  in  justice  to  all  the  persons 
and  interests  concerned,  they  will  come  with  their  re- 
sources of  persuasion,  not  coercion. 

My  appeal  to  the  religious  and  political  rulers  to  do 
this  shall  be  in  the  burning  words  of  a  celebrated  de- 
fender of  the  capitalistic  system  of  economics,  John 
Stuart  Mill,  words  which  constitute  the  most  re- 
markable passage  in  his  powerful  essay  on  Liberty: 

No  argument,  we  may  suppose,  can  now  be  needed, 
against  permitting  a  legislature  or  an  executive,  not 
identified  in  interest  with  the  people,  to  prescribe 
opinions  to  them,  and  determine  what  doctrines  or 
what  arguments  they  shall  be  allowed  to  hear. 

Speaking  generally,  it  is  not,  in  constitutional  coun- 
tries, to  be  apprehended,  that  the  government,  whether 
completely  responsible  to  the  people  or  not,  will  often 
attempt  to  control  the  expression  of  opinion,  except 
when  in  doing  so  it  makes  itself  the  organ  of  the 
general  intolerance  of  the  public. 

Let  us  suppose,  therefore,  that  the  government  is 
entirely  at  one  with  the  people,  and  never  thinks  of 
exerting  any  power  of  coercion  unless  in  agreement 
with  what  it  conceives  to  be  their  voice. 

But  I  deny  the  right  of  the  people  to  exercise  such 
coercion,  either  by  themselves  or  by  their  government. 
The  power  itself  is  illegitimate.  The  best  government 
has  no  more  title  to  it  than  the  worst.  It  is  as  noxious, 
or  more  noxious,  when  exerted  in  accordance  with  public 
opinion,  than  when  in  opposition  to  it. 

If  all  mankind  minus  one,  were  of  one  opinion,  and 
only  one  person  were  of  the  contrary  opinion,  mankind 
would    be    no    more    justified    in    silencing    that    one 


AFTERWORD  213 

person,  than  he,  if  he  had  the  power,  would  be  justified 
in  silencing  mankind. 

Were  an  opinion  a  personal  possession  of  no  value 
except  to  the  owner;  if  to  be  obstructed  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  it  were  simply  a  private  injury,  it  would 
make  some  difference  whether  the  injury  was  inflict- 
ed on  only  a  few  persons  or  on  many.  But  the  pecul- 
iar evil  of  silencing  the  expression  of  an  opinion  is. 
that  it  is  robbing  the  human  race;  posterity  as  well 
as  the  existing  generation ;  those  who  dissent  from 
the  opinion,  still  more  than  those  who  hold  it.  If  the 
opinion  is  right,  they  are  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of 
exchanging  error  for  truth:  if  wrong,  they  lose,  what  is 
almost  as  great  a  benefit,  the  clearer  perception  and 
livelier  impression  of  truth,  produced  by  its  collision  with 
error. 

This  passage  should  be  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold 
on  the  doors,  of  every  church  and  court  house  in  the 
world.  It  was  written  in  condemnation  of  the  per- 
secution by  majorities  of  minorities  in  states,  but 
it  applies  equally  to  all  intolerance  of  dissentient 
opinions. 

It  is  utterly  impossible  in  a  printed  discussion  of 
the  length  of  this  booklet  to  weed  out  every  word 
capable  of  misconstruction;  and,  equally  so,  to  fur- 
nish a  definition  or  limitation  to  every  doubtful  word 
or  phrase.    Nevertheless  I  call  attention  to  a  few: 

The  word  'revolution'  as  used  here  should  not  be 
taken  as  implying  armed  insurrection  oi*  violence, 
unless  expressly  so  described.  These  are  not  neces- 
sary features  of  revolution.  There  have  been  both 
political  and  industrial  revolutions  entirely  unattended 
by  violence  or  bloodshed;  for  example,  the  political 
revolution  of  1787  when  the  old  Articles  of  Con- 
federation were  abolished  and  the  federal  Constitution 


214  AFTERWORD 

imposed  upon  the  United  States;  also  the  political 
and  industrial  revolution  of  1919  in  Hungary  when 
for  a  time  a  soviet  system  was  established,  with  Bela 
Kun  as  premier. 

The  bloodshed  which  often  attends  revolutions 
comes  almost  invariably  from  the  lawless  counter- 
revolutionary efforts  of  the  deposed  ruling  class  to 
maintain  themselves  in  power  or  regain  power  by 
terrorism  and  murder. 

When  I  eulogize  the  Bolsheviki  and  their  system 
in  Russia,  I  am  not  to  be  taken  as  advocating  for  the 
United  States  the  employment  of  the  bloody  tactics 
for  gaining  power,  which  the  capitalist  press  of 
America  persists  in  describing — and  as  I  believe, 
falsely.  I  deal,  in  this  booklet,  not  with  tactics  but 
with  facts.  I  concern  myself  here  not  with  the  ways 
by  which  the  Bolsheviki  of  Russia  gained  power,  but 
with  what  they  did  with  the  power  after  gaining  it. 

As  I  was  trained  in  theology,  I  am  certain  that  my 
religious  position  has  been  so  clearly  outlined  that 
no  mistake  as  to  where  I  stand  will  be  made  by  the 
rulers  in  my  church;  but,  having  had  no  training  in 
the  law,  I  am  less  certain  that  my  political  position 
will  be  as  unmistakably  understood  by  the  rulers  in 
my  state.  Therefore,  to  avoid  misinterpretation  of 
certain  words  and  phrases  in  this  booklet,  I  here  ex- 
pressly disclaim  any  intention  of  violating  the 
criminal-syndicalism  statute  of  Ohio,  following  as 
closely  as  may  be  its  phraseology,  in  these  my  denials 
of  criminal  intention : 

Nothing  herein  is  to  be  tmderstood  as  advocat- 
ing or  teaching  the  duty,  necessity,  or  propriety 
of  crime,  sabotage,  violence  or  unlawful  methods 


AFTERWORD  215 

of  terrorism  as  a  means  of  accomplishing  indus- 
trial or  political  reform.  This  booklet  is  not 
issued  for  the  purpose  of  advocating,  advising,  or 
teaching  the  doctrine  that  industrial  or  political 
reform  should  be  brought  about  by  crime, 
sabotage,  violence  or  unlawful  methods  of 
terrorism;  nor  of  justifying  the  commission  or 
the  attempt  to  commit  crime,  sabotage,  violence 
or  unlawful  methods  of  terrorism  with  intent  to 
exemplify,  spread  or  advocate  the  propriety  of 
the  doctrines  of  criminal  syndicalism;  nor  of 
organizing  any  society,  group  or  assemblage  of 
persons  formed  to  teach  or  advocate  the  doctrines 
of  criminal  syndicalism.  If  any  such  meaning 
shall  be  read  into  any  passage  of  this  booklet  by 
any  reader,  it  will  be  a  wrong  meaning,  and  not 
what  I  intended  to  convey. 

A  revolution  by  which  a  new  industrial  democracy 
— the  freedom  to  make  things  for  the  use  of  workers 
— will  supplant  the  old  capitalist  democracy — the 
freedom  to  make  things  for  the  profit  of  owners — is 
an  inevitable  event  in  the  history  of  every  country 
within  the  twentieth  century. 

My  object  in  this  booklet  is  not  the  promotion  of 
class  hatred  and  strife.  Far  from  it.  I^  is  to  persuade 
to  the  banishment  of  gods  from  skies  and  capitalists 
from  earth. 

Theism  and  capitalism  are  the  great  blights  upon 
mankind,  the  fatal  ones  to  which  it  owes,  more  than 
to  all  others  together,  the  greatest  and  most  un- 
necessary of  its  sufferings,  those  arising  from  ignor- 
ance, war,  poverty  and  slavery. 


216  AFTERWORD 

II. 

A  nut-shell  summary  of  this  booklet  is  contained  in 
these  confessions  of  my  religious  and  political  faith : 

I.  My  religious  faith  is  summed  up  in  the  follow- 
ing areed  of  twelve  articles: 

(1)  The  chief  end  of  every  man  should  be  to  make 
the  most  of  his  own  life  by  having  it  as  long  and 
happy  as  possible  and  to  help  others  in  doing  this  for 
themselves. 

(2)  Though  parents  live  unconsciously  in  their 
children,  and  all  do  so  in  those  over  whom  they  have 
had  any  influence,  yet  all  there  is  of  conscious,  per- 
sonal life  for  man  is  of  a  terrestrial  character,  none 
celestial. 

(3)  Knowledge  is  the  Christ  of  the  World.  The 
saviour-gods  of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations 
of  religion  are  symbols  of  this  one. 

(4)  Ignorance  is  the  devil  of  the  world.  The  de- 
stroyer-gods of  the  supernaturalistic  interpretations 
of  religion  are  symbols  of  this  one. 

(5)  Knowledge  consists  in  knowing  facts  and 
truths.  Every  real  fact  or  truth  is  a  word  of  the 
only  gospel  which  the  world  possesses. 

(6)  A  fact  is  something  which  matter,  force  and 
motion  have  unconsciously  done,  not  what  a  god  has 
consciously  willed.    There  are  no  other  facts. 

(7)  A  truth  is  a  fact  so  interpreted  that,  if  it  is 
lived,  it  will  contribute  towards  making  the  most  of 
life.     There  are  no  other  truths. 

(8)  Hence  the  greatest  people  in  the  world  are  the 
scientists  who  discover  facts,  and  the  teachers  who 
interpret  them  and  persuade  to  their  living.     If  you 


AFTERWORD  2 1  7 

contend  that  mothers  are  greater  than  teachers,  I  shall 
agree  with  you  on  condition  that  you  will  admit  that 
a  mother  is  not  really  great  unless  she  is  a  teacher. 

(9)  The  desire  and  efiFort  to  learn  facts,  interpret 
and  live  them  constitute  morality. 

(10)  Morality  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world, 
because  it  is  all  there  is  of  real  religion  and  politics. 

(11)  But,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  one 
thing  which  is  greater  than  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world — freedom. 

(12)  And  the  freedom  which  is  greater  than  mor- 
ality consists  in  the  liberty  to  learn,  interpret,  live  and 
teach  facts,  without  which  liberty  a  man  may  "be  a 
non-moral  child,  or  an  immoral  hypocrite,  but  he  can- 
not be  the  possessor  of  the  pearl  of  great  price — 
morality,  without  which  human  life  is  not  worth  the 
living  or  even  possible. 

II.  My  political  faith  is  summed  up  in  the  follow- 
ing creed  of  twelve  articles: 

(1)  As  the  universe  in  general  is  self-existing, 
self-sustaining  and  self-governing,  so  man  in  parti- 
cular, who  is  but  one  among  the  transitpry,  cosmic 
phenomena,  has  all  of  the  potentialities  of  his  own 
life  within  himself,  so  that  every  man  can  say  of  him- 
self what  the  makers  of  Jesus  had  him  say :  I  and  my 
Father  are  one. 

(2)  Man  has  set  a  far-off  and  high-up  goal  of  an 
ideal  civilization  for  himself,  and  is  finding  the  way  to 
it  by  his  own  discoveries,  and  is  walking  therein  by 
his  own  strength,  so  that  he  is  not  in  the  least  in- 
debted to  any  among  the  gods  of  the  supernaturalistic 
interpretations  of  religion,  either  for  the  setting  of 
the  goal,  or  for  what  progress  he  has  4nade  towards  it. 


218  AFTERWORD 

(3)  Nor  is  humanity  indebted  to  its  outstanding 
representatives  for  the  advance  in  the  way  of  civil- 
ization, as  is  evident  from  the  fact  that,  but  for  the 
gfods,  it  would  have  long  since  been  far  beyond  the 
point  where  the  English-German  war  would  have 
been  within  the  range  of  possibilities,  and  these  gods 
are  the  gifts  to  a  blind  humanity  by  its  blind  leaders. 

(4)  Humanity  is  not  indebted  to  its  physical  scien- 
tists any  more  than  to  its  spiritual  prophets  for  its 
advance  in  the  way  of  civilization,  because  the  scien- 
tists have  always  worked,  as  the  prophets  have 
preached,  in  the  interest  of  the  beneficiaries  of  the  ex- 
isting system  of  economics.  Economic  systems  have 
been  the  chief,  if  not  indeed,  the  only  promoters  of 
war,  and  the  world  war  with  its  tremendous  horrors 
would  not  have  been  possible  but  for  science, 

(5)  So,  then,  the  history  of  civilization  has  been 
what  it  is  because  of  the  economic  systems  by  which 
the  material  necessities  of  life  (foods,  raiments  and 
houses)  have  been  produced,  not  because  gods  have 
made  spiritual  revelations,  nor  yet  because  men  have 
made  great  discoveries  and  persuasively  taught  them. 
According  to  Marx,  who  discovered  the  key  to  the 
door  of  history,  it  is  constituted  neither  by  the  gods 
in  the  skies,  nor  the  great  men  on  earth ;  but  by  eco- 
nomic systems.  These  create  the  divinities  and  the 
leaders,  not  they  them. 

(6)  Thus  far  in  the  history  of  mankind  every 
civilization  has  rested  upon  the  institution  of  slavery 
and  ther6  have  been,  speaking  broadly,  three  different 
forms  of  it,  with  their  correspondingly  different  civil- 
izations— chattel,  feudal  and  capital.     Each  of  these 


AFTERWORD  219 

forms  of  slavery  has  been  the  foundation  for  the 
superstructure  of  a  civilization  peculiar  to  a  distinct 
period  of  history.  Chattel,  feudal  and  capital  slav- 
eries respectively  constituted  the  foundations  for  the 
superstructures  of  ancient,  mediaeval  and  modern 
civilizations.  The  second  of  the  two  great  discov- 
eries by  Marx  was  that  the  wage  slavery  of  capital- 
ism, by  far  the  worst  of  all  slaveries,  is  due  to  sur- 
plus profits. 

(7)  Since  civilizations  have  their  embodiments  in 
religious  and  political  institutions  (churches  and 
states  including  what  goes  with  them)  so  clearly  as  to 
justify  the  contention  that  religion  and  politics  are 
the  halves  of  one  and  the  same  reality — civilization — 
it  follows  that  I  am  right  in  carrying  my  materialism 
over  from  the  realm  of  religion  into  that  of  politics. 

(8)  A  system  of  economics  is  about  the  most  ma- 
terialistic thing  in  the  world,  yet  it  is  the  only  key 
which  will  open  the  door  to  the  temple  of  human 
history.  Having  opened  it  with  this  key,  the  first 
thing  to  be  seen  is  a  world  divided  into  two  classes, 
one  class  whose  representatives  live  by  owning  the 
material  means  and  the  machines  for  production  and 
distribution;  and  another  class  whose  representatives 
live  by  working  in  making  and  operating  these  ma- 
chines, with  the  result  of  producing  and  distributing 
the  material  commodities  by  which  the  world  is  fed, 
clothed  and  housed,  but  to  the  surfeiting  of  the  own- 
ers who,  as  such,  produce  nothing  and  have  every- 
thing and  the  starving  of  the  workers  who  produce 
everything,  and  have  nothing. 

(9)  Communists  and  capitalists  agree  that  when 
the  goal  of  humanity  has  been  reached  the  world  will 


220  AFTERWORD 

find  itself  to  be  one  all  inclusive  co-operating  family. 

(10)  Capitalists  say  that  then  the  co-operating 
will  be  between  the  owners  as  fathers,  and  the  work- 
ers as  children.  The  capitalists  will  recognize  every 
laborer  who  does  a  fair  day's  work,  as  a  good  son  or 
daughter,  and  the  laborer  will  recognize  every  owner 
who  gives  a  fair  day's  wage  as  a  good  father. 

(11)  Communists  say  that  then  the  co-operating 
will  be  between  men,  all  of  whom  are  on  the  same 
footing  as  laborers,  since,  when  the  goal  is  reached, 
the  world  will  no  longer  be  divided .  as  it  has  been, 
from  time  out  of  mind,  into  a  small  owning  or  master 
class  and  a  large  working  or  slave  class;  but  it  will 
constitute  one  great  all  inclusive  family,  every  mem- 
ber of  which  will  be  on  the  same  footing  with  all 
others,  except  that  the  older  iriembers  will  regard  the 
younger  as  sons  and  daughters,  and  they  in  turn  will 
be  regarded  as  fathers  and  mothers,  and  all  of  the 
same  generation  will  look  upon  each  other  as  broth- 
ers and  sisters. 

(12)  Civilization  always  has  been  and  ever  will 
be  impossible  without  slavery,  because  leisure  and  op- 
portunity for  study,  social  intercourse  and  travel  are 
necessary  to  it,  but  under  capitalism  as  it  works  out, 
only  representatives  of  the  owning  or  master  class 
have  these  prerequisites,  and  those  of  the  working  or 
slave  class  must  be  deprived  of  them.  When  com- 
munism supplants  capitalism,  all  will  have  their  equal 
parts  in  both  the  labor  necessary  to  the  sustenance, 
of  the  physical  (body)  life,  and  also  the  leisure  nec- 
essary to  the  development  of  the  psychical  (soul) 
life.  There  will  still  be  slavery,  indeed  much  more 
of  it  than   the   world  has  hitherto  known,   but  ma- 


AFTERWORD  221 

chines,  not  men,  women  and  children  will  be  the 
slaves.  Of  course  there  will  remain  much  work  con- 
nected with  the  making  and  operating  of  the  ma- 
chines, but  the  time  and  energy  required  for  it  will 
more  and  more  decrease  with  the  inevitable  increase 
in  the  number  and  eflficiency  of  the  machines  until, 
according  to  conservative  estimates,  three  or  four 
hours  per  day  of  comparatively  light  and  pleasant 
employment  will  be  quite  sufficient  to  provide  the 
necessities  of  life  in  abundance  for  every  worker  and 
his  dependents,  so  that  then,  all  will  have  as  much  oi 
them  as  the  few  have  now ;  and  this  without  any  sense 
of  slavery,  because  when  one  is  working  for  the  benefit 
of  himself  and  his  own  in  particular,  and  the  public 
to  which  he  belongs  in  general,  not  for  the  profit  of 
a  class  of  which  he  is  not  a  representative,  there  is  no 
,  feeling  of  irksome  servitude. 

III. 

A  world-wide  revolution  has  begun  and  is  rapidly 
spreading  over  the  earth.  Why?  Because  a  world- 
wide economic  system  for  feeding,  clothing  and  hous- 
ing the  people  has  broken  down,  so  that  it  must  be 
supplanted  by  a  new  system,  else  mankind  will  perish 
for  the  lack  of  food,  raiment  and  shelter. 

This  revolutionary  war  is  between  the  working 
class  whose  representatives '  live  starvingly,  though 
they  produce  and  distribute  all  the  necessities  of  life 
and  the  capitalist  class  whose  representatives  live 
surfeitingly,  though  taking  no  part  in  the  production 
and  distribution  of  these  necessities. 


222  AFTERWORD 

Nearly  one  hundred  years  ago  our  fourth  Presi- 
dent, James  Madison,  saw  partly  and  dimly  what 
nearly  every  one  now  sees  fully  and  clearly: 

We  are  free  today  substantially,  but  the  day  will 
come  when  our  Republic  will  be  an  impossibility.  It 
will  be  an  impossibility  because  wealth  will  be  con- 
centrated in  the  hands  of  a  few.  A  republic  cannot 
stand  upon  bayonets,  and  when  that  day  comes,  when 
the  wealth  of  the  nation  will  be  in  the  hands  of  a  few, 
then  we  must  rely  upon  the  wisdom  of  the  best  elements 
in  the  country  to  readjust  the  laws  of  the  nation  to  the 
changed  conditions. 

The  laborers  of  Russia  have  turned  that  country 
right  side  up,  so  that  they  themselves  are  above  and 
the  capitalists  below,  having  the  privilege  of  remain- 
ing down  to  idle  and  starve  or  else  to  crawl  up  to 
work  and  live,  but  not  to  rob,  war  and  enslave. 

As  I  lay  down  my  pen  the  working  man's  govern- 
ment of  Russia  is  fighting  a  double  war,  the  Poland-* 
Crimea  war,  to  prevent  its  overthrow  by  the  capitalist 
governments  of  the  world,  especially  England, 
France,  Japan  and  the  United  States,  which  in  this 
war  are  surreptitiously  confederated  against  it,  and 
the  victory  seems  assured  to  it,  largely  because  of  the 
sympathy  and  help  of  their  fellow  workers  thraugh-, 
out  the  world. 

Fear  not  the  tyrants  shall  rule  for  ever, 
Or  the  priests  of  the  bloody  Faith : 
They  stand  on  the  brink  of  that  mighty  river 
Whose  waves  they  have  tainted  with  death, 
It  is  fed  from  the  depths  of  a  thousand  dells, 
Around  them  it  foams  and  rages  and  swells, 
And  their  swords  and  their  scepters  I  floating  see 
Like  wrecks  in  the  surge  of  eternity. 

— Shelley. 


AFTERWORD  223 

Marx  though  dead  yet  speaketh.  He  is  speaking^ 
more  widely  and  persuasively  in  death  than  in  life. 
Russia  is  the  megaphone  from  which  his  voice  goes 
out  through  every  land  and  over  every  sea. 

Never  man  nor  god  spake  with  as  much  power  as 
he  speaks.  His  gospel  is  to  the  slave,  and  this  is  its 
thrilling  appeal — workers  of  the  world  unite,  and  this 
is  its  inspiring  assurance — ^you  have  nothing  to  lose 
but  your  chains  and  a  world  to  gain. 

WM.  M.  BROWN. 
Brownella  Cottage,  Galion,  Ohio. 
September  24th,  1930. 


THE    GRAND    MARCH 
By  Helen  Keller 

The  hour  has  struck  for  the  Grand  March  I  Onward,  Com- 
fades,  all  together  I  Fall  in  line  I  Start  the  New  Year  wth  a 
cheer  I  Let  us  join  the  world's  procession  marching  toward  a 
glad  tomorrow.  Strong  of  hope  and  brave  in  heart  the  West 
shall  meet  the  East!  March  with  us,  brothers  every  one  I 
March  with  us  to  all  things  new!  Climb  with  us  the  hills  of 
God  to  |i  wider,  holier  life.  Onward,  Comrades,  all  together, 
onward  to  meet  the  Dawn  I 

In  the  East  a  new  star  is  risen!  With  pain  and  anguish  the 
Old  Order  has  given  birth  to  the  New,  and  behold,  in  the  East 
a  man-child  is  born!  Onward,  Comrades,  all  together!  On' 
ward  to  the  camp-fires  of  Russia!  Onward  to  the  coming 
Dawn! 

Through  the  night  of  our  despair  rings  the  keen  call  of  the 
New  Day.  All  the  powers  of  darkness  could  not  still  that 
shout  of  joy  in  far-away  Moscow!  Meteor-like  through  the 
heavens  flashed  the  golden  words  of  light,  "Soviet  Republic 
of  Russia."  Words  sun-like  piercing  the  dark,  joyous  radiant 
love-words  banishing  hate,  bidding  the  teeming  world  of  men 
to  wake  and  live!  Onward,  Comrades,  all  together,  onward  to 
the  bright,    redeeming  Dawn! 

With  peace  and  brotherhood  make  sweet  the  bitter  way  of 
men!  Today,  and  all  the  days  to  come,  repeat  the  Word  of 
Him  who  said,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill."  Send  on  psalming  winds 
the  angel-chorus,  "Peace  on  earth,  good-will  to  men."  On- 
ward march,  and  keep  on  marching  until  His  Will  on  earth  is 
done!  Onward,  Comrades,  all  together,  onward  to  the  life- 
giving   fountain    of   Dawn! 

All  along  the  road  beside  us  throng  the  peoples  sad  and 
broken,  weeping  women,  children  hungry,  homeless  like  little 
birds  cast  out  of  their  nest.  With  their  hearts  aflame,  untamed, 
glorying  in  martyrdom  they  hail  us  passing  quickly,  "Halt  not, 
O  Comrades,  yonder  glimmers  the  star  of  our  hope,  the  red- 
centered  dawn  in  the  East!  Halt  not,  lest  you  perish  ere  you 
reach  the  Land  of  Promise."  Onward,  Comrades,  all  together, 
onward  to  the  sun-red  Dawn! 


ON  THE  JOB:  The  Committee  of  five  Bishops 
appointed  by  the  House  of  Bishops  to  investisrat« 
the  charges  of  heresy  against  Bishop  Brown. 


REPORT:  He  is  bristling  with  heresies,  but  the 
House  cannot  take  hold  of  any  without  doing 
orthodoxy  more  harm  than  good.  Let  him  go  and 
say,  he  is  crazy. 


1 

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